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THE MYSTERY; 



OB, 



EVIL AND GOD. 



JOHN YOUNG, LL.D. (Edin.) 



" 'Ottttj; yap ifibv voov ecpvaaifxc, el^ ev ravro re rrav 

aveAVETO. Fragment of Xenoplianei. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT AND COMPANY. 

1856. 



.1^ 



^ . 



A.N'iLLYSIS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Possible Knowledge — Creation — Material, Moral Kingdoms 

— Physical, Moral Evil — Moral Liberty — Fore-knowledge, 
Fore-ordination — The Thinker's Difficulties — Keconciled ? 

— Kemoved? - " Page 11 



PART I. 



THE INFINITE NATURE. 



Free Working, Eeflex of Individual Being — Infinite Perfec- 
tion — Moral, Holiest Region of Divine — Highest Grlory — 
Its Reality — Involved in Intellectual — Virtue Eternal in 
Eternal Nature — Human Conscience, Infinite Conscience 
— Excellence in Created, Reflexion of Uncreated — The 
Infinite, All-Perfect — Father, of Souls — Difficulties of 
Providence — Solved, unsolved, Moral Perfection of Infinite 
Abides ...... 21 

Ciii] 



IV AI^ALYSIS. 

PAET II. 

"THE infinite" IN THE UNIVERSE. 

CHAPTER I. 

"THE INFINITE ONE " CREATING. 

His First Act, outwards — Creation incomprehensible — Not 
contradictory to Reason — " The Unconditioned " — Non- 
entity unconditioned — Hegel's Axiom — The Infinite, the 
Eternal Positive — Pantheism, contradictory — Cousin — 
Fact of Creation, alone — Thoughts, our Creations — Locke 

— Mind, Matter, Divine Creations - - Page 43 

CHAPTER H. 

" THE INFINITE ONE " IN THE KINGDOM OF MATTER. 

Uncreated and Created — First Relationship — Creating and 
Governing, their Connection — Almighty Agency, a universal, 
constant Necessity — Physical Laws, necessitate Idea of Will 
in Combination with Power — God's Universal Presence, 
Working — " The One " reigning over All - - 59 

CHAPTER IH. 

"the infinite one" in the kingdom op SPIRIT. 

Phenomena of Mind and of Matter — Disorder of Moral World 

— No Plan originating with Men — But in Mind of God 

— His Intelligence necesitates this — Reigning Moral Laws 

— Progressive Development — Not Direct — Realisation — 
Destiny of Man — Human and Divine Agency — How 
combined ? - - - - . 77 



ANALYSIS. V 

PART III. 

THE ATTRIBUTES OF THE INFINITE NATURE HARMONIOUS WITH 
THE FACTS OF THE UNIVERSE. 

CHAPTER I, 

PHYSICAL AND MORAL EVIL, IN THE LIGHT OF REASON. 
SECTION I. RESPONSIBILITY. 

Grounded in Fact of Conscience — Moral Intuitions — Higher 
Significance — Doctrine of The Infinite — Eternal Guardian 
of Truth and Right — Immortality — Original Intuition — 
Account hereafter — Man mitst meet his God - Page 101 

SECTION n. — POWER THE NECESSARY CONDITION OF 
RESPONSIBILITY. 

Power, Freedom, Harmony of " Uncreated " — Certainty and 
Constancy not Necessity but Liberty — Man — His Struc- 
ture. I. Conscious Power of Choice — Physiological, Phi- 
losophical, Theological, Difficulties — Material and Moral 
Causation — Man's Absolute Dependence — Will secondary 
yet real Independence — Cause of Choice within not with- 
out — "Autonomy" of Will, Kant — Coleridge — Dr. Reid 

— Sir William Hamilton — Inconceivableness of Moral Li- 
berty — Cousin — Will its own Law — Self-determining Power, 
Misnomer — " Last Judgment " — " Greatest apparent Good'' 

— No Law to Will, out of itself — Fatalism. II. Ability 
to exercise Power of Choice — Maniac — Lower Animals — 
Force of Habit — Sensualism — Irresponsible Inability — 
Voluntary Loss of Power, Crime — Moral Malformation — 
Righteous Condition and Criterion ' - 121 



VI ANALYSIS. 



SECTION III. MORAL EVIL THE VOLUNTARY ABUSE OF MORAL 

POWER. 

Material Moral Universe — Eesisting Force in Moral, not in 
Material — Men, Persons, not Things — Crime, Reality, 
Spread — Dilettante Morality — Moral Antitheses. — Philo- 
sophical Necessity, Leibnitz, Soame Jenyns — Matter, Seat 
of Evil — Higher Laws of Man's Being — Essence of Crime, 
Voluntariness — Suspension of Law of Gravitation — Moral 
Disorder — Mystery of Created Will — Almighty resisted — 
Moral Power, Freedom, Licentiousness - Page 168 



SECTION IV. THE CREATOR INFINITELY OPPOSED TO MORAL EVIL. 

Physical Evil, conceivable — Moral Evil, unalterably hateful 

— Language of earlier Theology — Motive in Creating — 
No conscious End, higher than highest End — Benevolence, 
Moral Excellence, its own End — Necessity of Creation — 
M. Cousin — Resistless, Creative Lovingness — Universe, 
intelligent, moral, voluntary — Will not necessitable — Re- 
sistance to God, a daily Fact — First false Choice, inpre- 
ventible — Blasphemy, God could prevent, did not — Edwards 

— Fore-knowledge — God, Eternal Antagonist of Moral 
Evil 183 



SECTION v. — PHYSICAL EVIL THE NECESSARY EFFECTS, ALSO THE 
DIVINE CORRECTIVE, OF MORAL EVIL. 

Sin, its own Punishment — Necessarily Physical — Affecting 
Susceptibilities, Structure, Being, of Soul — Not Ordination 
of God. — Physical Evils, strictly so called. I. Connection 
of Mind and Body — Animal Structure — Pain, &c. &c. 
II. Hereditary, Representationary Constitution of Human 
Race. — Extension, Propagation, of Suffering — Forms, Do- 



ANALYSIS. VU 

grees, Distributions of Physical Evil, of God — Their End, 
Highest Moral Good — Suffering, Instrument wherewith to 
destroy Sin - - - - - T Page 221 



CHAPTER H. 

PHYSICAL AND MORAL EVIL IN THE BRIGHTER LIGHT OP 
REVELATION. 



SECTION I. — EVIL IN THE UNIVERSE AND ITS ENTRANCE AMONG 

MEN. 

Two Orders of Intelligent Moral Being. I. Angels — Spirits 

— Absence of external Temptation — Probation, Respon- 
sibility — First Sin, Ambition — Aggravations — Creator, 
wholly apart from it — All His Agency opposed to it. H. 
Man — Reason, Conscience, Will — Compound Being — 
Structure, Guarded — External Temptation — Protection 
against Internal not possible — Lesser Protection, needless 

— Temptation, not cause of Sin — Exposes what within — 
Human Sin, remediable — Creator, no Part in it — Oppos- 
ing it 251 



SECTION n. — THE COURSE OF EVIL ON OUR EARTH AND THE 
SUCCESSIVE INFLUENCES DIRECTED AGAINST IT. 

First Epoch — Divine Benignity — Longevity of early Races of 
Men — "God willeth not, any should perish" — For fifteen^ 
hundred Years this Influence on Mankind - ,- 271 

Second Epoch — Judgment — Deluge — Geological, Moral, Dif;^ ^ 

Acuities — Mercy mingled with Judgment — Fears of Welfld ^ 
addressed — " Flee, Wrath to come." - - ( 277y 



Vm ANALYSIS. 

Third Epoch — Exceptional, Elective System — Jewish Dispen- 
sation — Origin, Love to the JVorld — No Partiality, Fa- 
vouritism — Expedient for preserving Truth, for World — 
EjBTective — Darkness, Evil, wide-spread, nevertheless — Crea- 
tor apart from Result - - Page 284 

Fourth Epoch — Mystery of All Time — Complex Instrumen- 
tality 293 

I. An Incarnation of Divinity — Jesus of Nazareth — God in 
Man — Mighty Instrument, subduing rebellious Will 303 

II. A new Expression and Medium of Infinite Mercy — Cross, 
the Power of Christianity — Myriads have felt it — Divine 
Instrument, exterminating Moral Evil - - 307 

III. A perfect Humanity — Image held up by God before 
World — To affect Conscience, Heart - - 312 

lY. A new Revelation of Spiritual Truth — Truth,Quickening, 
Restoring — Life of Soul — Divine Provision for perishing 
Humanity - - - - - 315 

Y. A new Fountain and Channel of the Divine Spirit — Striv- 
ings of Holy Ghost — Death destroyed by Contact with Life 
— Points of Contact multiplied — Outpouring of Holy Ghost 
Triimiph, Reign of God in Man - - - 319 



SECTION III. THE DESTINY OF THE MORAL UNIVERSE. 

Outer Darkness — Universe of Light — Unions of Eternity — 
Benevolent Agencies — Spiritual Energy — Self-Development 
— Studies of the Future — Interminable Progress — Mental, 
Moral Life — Perfection, Blessedness — " Life Eternal" 331 



THE MYSTERY, 



ETC. 



IN THREE PARTS. 



Part I. The Infinite Nature. 

n. '' The Infinite" in the Universe. 
m. The Attributes op The Infinite Nature har- 
monises WITH the Facts op The Universe. 



1* 



INTRODUCTION. 

Possible Knowledge — Creation — Material, Moral King- 
doms — Physical, Moral Evil — Moral Liberty — Fore- 
knowledge — Fore-ordination — The Thinker's Difficul- 
ties — Reconciled ? — Removed ? 

Moder:n" philosopliy offers to the world, as its latest 
synthesis, three categories of possible knowledge: 
Unity, Plurality, and the Eelation between these 
opposites. The first in this eclectic trinity rises above 
the present investigation, the remaining two cate- 
gories fall within its self-prescribed limits. Being 
per se. The Unconditional, Eternal Being is here 
assumed, and the attempt is ventured to pass from 
" The One" to '' The All," from " The Infinite," in 
Himself, as a truth of reason, to the products of His 
Almighty Will, as they lie open before us, and to 
His Agency, as a fact in the existing condition and 
government of the universe. 

Manifold questions start up on the first approach 

ai] 



12 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

to this region ; they are profound, distressing, and 
dark. What is creation? its nature, its mode, its 
moment ? Wtat is the final cause of creation, and 
of sucli a creation as exists ? Did it originate in a 
necessity, or in a deliberate cKoice ? Did it origi- 
nate in pure benevolence, a desire to produce beings 
fitted for spiritual glory, and suiTomided with ma- 
terials and means adapted to this high end? or was 
it, owing to a righteous and wise purpose, to exhibit 
personal excellence, and to secure merited honour ? 
On tbe same ground, supposing a real and constant 
Divine action in human affairs, is the governing 
impulse benevolence or self-manifestation ? 

The reahty of Almighty agency beyond the in- 
stant and the act of creation, and the nature of that 
agency and its extent and its laws, are still questions 
— questions perhaps undeterminable. 

In the two widely separated kingdoms of the 
existing universe — the material and the moral — 
is there a distinction as to the agency put forth 
from above, and if so, what is its precise charac- 
ter? — a distinction between the control exercised 
over intelhgent moral beings and the production 
of mechanical, chemical, and physiological trains of 
phenomena ? 

One of the dark mysteries of our world is physical 



MORAL EVIL. MORAL LIBERTY. 13 

evil. Is the fact of its existence reconcilable with 
*^ The Moral" in the Infinite Nature, and especially 
with Infinite Goodness ? Moral Evil is a mystery 
unutterably darker still ; it is the one^ all-embracing 
mystery of Time. But is there such a thing? 
What is Moral Evil, strictly, universally ? Its es- 
sence, its voluntariness or necessariness, its forms, 
its issue, how shall they be interpreted ? Was the 
entrance of this damned plague into the universe 
inevitable ? Was there no alternative between no 
intelligent creation at all and the certain existence 
of moral evil ? Or, although it was possible to have 
prevented its introduction, did it appear best, on the 
whole, to Infinite Eectitude and Wisdom, because 
productive of a larger amount of good than could 
otherwise have been secured, not to prevent it ? 

The mystery of Moral Evil opens out into the 
question of Moral Liberty. Is there such a thing 
to man as Freedom of Will? What is its essential 
meaning, what are its conditions, and what its cri- 
terion? Man's conscious nature is threefold — sen- 
sational, intellectual, and moral. In accordance with 
his complex constitution, he has desires that belong 
to his animal organization, others that arise from 
his rational being, and others that are connected 
especially with his responsible nature. Besides de- 



14: THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

sires, tliiis various in kind, lie has perceptions and 
judgments, respecting wliat is true or false, wise or 
unwise, useful or hurtful. In addition to these, 
again, he has moral sentiments and convictions, a 
sense of right and wrong, an inward persuasion that 
one thing is binding and another is prohibited. De- 
sires, judgments, and moral convictions constitute 
his conscious nature. By which of these classes of 
influences, or by what combination of them, is he 
governed, in his volitions and actions? Has he, or 
has he not, the power of determining his own 
choice ? Are his determinations necessary, invari- 
ably following, according to a fixed law, the impulse 
of his desires, or the verdict of his judgment, or the 
command of his conscience ? Or do all these three 
together affect the decision of his will, and what 
amount of influence is attributable to each in the 
final result ? 

Free agency in man and Divine predetermination, 
or even fore-knowledge, seem to be mutually destruc- 
tive. Can they be reconciled ? On the one hand, 
if man be altogether free, must not the events which 
make up the history of the world be a succession of 
contingencies? There is an evident doubtfulness 
involved in man's free choice, for this may take one 
direction or another indifferently; and, whatever be 



THE thinker's DIFFICULTIES. 15 

its issue, it depends on man liimself at the moment. 
Can any future event be considered certain if man be 
thus free ? Can there be a settled Providence in the 
world, a fixed course of events, having a sure and 
determinate aim, if all, nevertheless, be connected 
with the uncertainty of human volitions ? On the 
other hand, if man be not a free agent, can he be 
a responsible agent ? Moral liberty, moral power, 
seems to be the condition and the measure of respon- 
sibility. So far as a Being is necessitated to any 
course, has no clioice, no power on tlie one side or 
the other, lie can be tbe object neither of praise nor 
blame. The good or the evil of that course must 
be attributed, not to him, but to the author of the 
necessity under whicli he acts. 

The dark and complicated phenomena of Provi- 
dence, as they rise up in the past history of the 
world, and in its existing condition, are before us. 
How shall we on the one hand interpret the mental and 
moral constitution of man, and on the other hand do 
justice to the supremacy of '^ The Infinite One," and 
to the real relations in which He stands to creatures? 
We behold the sufferings and the crimes of men, both 
tremendous in amount, and pressing down on myriads 
till they fall into the grave. Shall we venture a 



16 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

suspicion that the pressure may continue even beyond 
the grave? Terrible calamities are crushing our race, 
but, worse than all, principles are corrupted, affections 
are polluted, character is debased, mental and moral 
perdition is begun. Perhaps perdition extends and 
deepens for ever. How shall we vindicate the cha- 
racter of the Creator and Euler in the face of such 
appalling phenomena, and yet more appalling appre- 
hensions ? Why did He give existence to such a 
world ? Why does He continue to suffer such a state 
of things ? Can we reconcile what we behold, even 
with the rectitude of the Supreme Being, at all 
events with His goodness; or if with these, how with 
His infinite wisdom, to which the state of the world 
seems so violent a contradiction; or if with His 
Wisdom, yet how with His Infinite Power ? 

Oh, Thou Only Mighty, who makest strong the 
weak, empower us to understand and to vindicate 
Thy ways ! Oh, Thou Only Fountain of Wisdom, 
pour down Thine own light on the course of Thy 
Providence below ! Eeveal to us Thy holy path, 
through the troubled affairs of men ! Where Thy 
footsteps are lost in darkness which we cannot pierce, 
let us stedfastly believe that Thou yet walkest in un- 
sullied majesty. May no suspicion of Thine Infinite 



SOLUTION — METHOD. 17 

Perfection darken onr heart ! Wherever darkness 
rest, be it still our immoveable faith that " all is Eec- 
titude, and Light, and Love in Thee !" 

If there be verily a Providence of God in the 
world, whatever be its nature, its character, or its 
sphere, it can have its foundation only in the attri- 
butes of the Mighty Foreseer Himself, in the govern- 
ing laws of His Being. Our first search, therefore, 
must be directed to the Infinite Nature, especially 
to "the Moral" in that nature. 

From the inner principles and laws of the Eternal 
Mind we shall pass to their outward development in 
the actual government of the world. 

It will then be necessary to view together the 
inner principles and their outward development, in 
order to ascertain whether they be harmonious or 
discordant. 

Our labour here, therefore, separates itself into 
three distinct spheres: First, the Infinite Nature. 
Second, " The Infinite" in the Universe. Third, the 
Harmony of the Infinite Nature with the Facts of 
the Universe. 



PAET FIEST. 
THE INFINITE NATURE. 

Free Working, Reflex op Individual Being — Infinite 
Perfection — Moral, holiest Region of Divine — Highest 
Glory — ^Its Reality — Involved in Intellectual — ^Virtue 
Eternal in Eternal Nature — Human Conscience, Infi- 
nite Conscience — Excellence in Created, Reflexion 
OP Uncreated — The Infinite, All-Perfect — Father 
of Souls — Difficulties of Providence — Solved un- 
solved, Moral Perfection of Infinite abides. 



as] 



BEINO AND WORKINO. 

Free working is only and ever the reflex of indi- 
vidual heing. The Person^ as he is, essentially, 
morally, never fails to send forth in his ^proceedings 
an unconscious but exact counterpart of himself; so 
that were we beforehand to ascertain his fixed inner 
principles, we should be able to predict, with entire 
certainty, his public course. The iNforming soul 
fashions the structure and inspires the countenance 
of the lody of outward manifestation. The search, 
therefore, into the Infinite Nature, into the attri- 
butes, especially the moral attributes, of the Maker 
and Euler of the Universe, is preliminary and para- 
mount. We do not, in this way, reach historically 
the facts of His agency, and, in their seeming, these 
may distressingly contravene our d priori conclusions ; 
but we shall distinctly arrive at the originative and 
formative cause of these facts. We cannot in this 
way learn what the Divine Administration of the 
universe actually is, but we shall certainly learn 
what it must essentially be, whatever existing phe- 
nomena may seem to convey. 

The words of the most ancient and holy book in 
the world meet us here, as at every point of the 



22 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

great subject wMcIl we presume to treat, like a voice 
of warning from above. They are stirring words in 
themselves, they are also venerable by their antiquity, 
and they are still more touchingly solemn by their 
association with the spiritual history of man — as an 
utterance of individual sentiment, their appropriate- 
ness is felt. " Canst thou by searching find out Grod, 
canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection ? It 
is as high as heaven, what canst thou do? it is 
deeper than hades, what canst thou know ? The 
measure thereof is longer than the earth and broader 
than the sea." 

Being — Unconditioned, Eternal, Alone! — how 
shall we ascend to the conception ? This much seems 
certain — It must be Mental Being, A Mind. There 
is a fountain from which all the intelligence diffused 
throughout the universe has issued. The thinking 
beings that people the universe with their marvel- 
lous and manifold endowments, once, were not. The 
Eternal willed and they rayed forth, gleams of light 
from the Uncreated Sun. The mighty principles, 
that are at work in the creation, the magnificent, 
complicated, vast designs which it reveals, the beau- 
tiful, sublime, grand thoughts which it utters, once, 
were not — at least in this embodiment. They 
belonged to the Infinite Mind, and were uttered out 



INFINITE PERFECTION. 23 

from it. But these, whatever be their grandeur and 
their number, do not exhaust the opulence of that 
mind, and do not mark the limit of its possessions. 
Uncreated Intelligence must he Infinite. Why not? 
Limitation here is gratuitous, groundless; what is 
more, let the limit which we fix be ever so remote, 
if there be a limit at all, something beyond is ever 
possible, that is, Being in a higher form is possible ; 
and we have sunk from the idea of " the ultimate 
the highest existence," the fountain of all other 
Being; we have conditioned The Unconditioned, 
and contradicted and nullified the sine qua non of 
our own conception. All truth must find its home 
in the Eternal Mind. All the knowable and all possi- 
ble power of knowing must dwell there, else we have 
not fulfilled the necessity imposed by our reason, 
and have even failed to rise to the highest conceivable 
form of existence. Thrown back on Being, per se^ 
Unconditioned, Alone, to limit is to destroy the essen- 
tial idea. All the not contradictory, that is, all the 
possible, is here the infallibly true; exaggeration 
there cannot be, so long as we look only to that 
which is really great. 

But this awful Being, Himself limitless, has and 
maintains intimate connections with limited natures. 
Unrelated to time, — ^for to his existence succession is 



24 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

impossible, — ^unrelated, also, to space, — for God is 
not extended, and is of no magnitude, — He stands, 
nevertheless, in enduring relation to those who are 
conditioned both by time and space. He is not far 
from the creation, but very near — near in His entire 
Godhood, to every atom, every being. Every atom, 
every being, exists every moment in His immediate, 
perfect perception, lie is the radiant, open, vast 
Eye of the universe, which never slumbers, never 
shuts, and which is ever as perfectly percipient of 
the minutest point as if nothing else were within the 
range of vision. Magnificent are the inspirations of 
the ancient bard ; and they awaken an echo in the 
depths of every soul of man : ''^ Whither shall I go 
from thy spirit or whither shall I flee from thy 
presence ? .... If I take the wings of the morning, 
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even 

there shall thy hand lead me If I say surely 

the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be 
light about me. Yea the darkness hideth not from 
thee, but the night shineth as the day : the darkness 
and the light are both alike to Thee." Yet sublimer 
and more daring is the fancy of the burdened and 
Boul-rapt prophet. He seems to hear the Eternal 
speak : '^ Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, 
and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself 



MORAL, HOLIEST REGION OF DIVINE. 26 

m secret places, that I shall not see him, saith the 
Lord? Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the 
Lord?" 

Limitation, on no side, is possible to the Highest ; 
All-Present, All-Seeing, AU-Powerful, All-Know- 
ing, and All- Wise, He must be. But His Physical 
Attributes, with all their glory, are both less ques- 
tioned than His Moral Perfections, and far less re- 
lated to the purpose of this investigation. We have 
to do with the ** Moral" rather than the " Physical" 
in the Infinite Nature. This region is unutterably 
sacred, — like another " Holy of Holies," the inner- 
most recess of the Uncreated Temple. There is a 
sanctity here, to which the hush of perfect silence 
and the worship of pure thought, too deep for artic- 
ulate expression, are alone congenial. The suscep- 
tible and awakened soul is struck with the pro- 
foundest awe in this unfrequented and mysterious 
spot. To be morally excellent is a higher elevation 
than to be physically or intellectually great. Phy- 
sical and even intellectual excellences are not to be 
compared with spiritual virtues. The moral, indeed, 
must have its basis in the intellectual, and is ever 
elevated in worth, with the intellectual stature and 
strength. The security and the power of virtue, as 
a governing principle in the soul, are determined by 
2 



26 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

the character of the iinderstanding ; and the better 
instructed and the more enlightened the intellect, the 
stronger and the sounder is the growth of all those 
higher principles which have their root in this soil. 
But moral worth takes rank far above all mere 
intellectual greatness. It is the bloom and flower 
of the spiritual nature, the charm and the crown of 
the rational being. The Physical Omnipotence of 
the Uncreated One, and even his Omniscience and 
his Infinite Wisdom, belong to a lower scale than 
his Eectitude, his Truth, and his Love. No intricate 
principles of valuation, no lengthened processes of 
arithmetic are needed in order to reach this conclu- 
sion; it is an intuitive and universal judgment. 
Spiritual worth is the highest glory of any rational 
nature ; in the Divine Nature it is this which presents 
the strongest claim to the admiration, the reverence, 
and the love of all creatures. Wherever intrusion 
may be lawful, at least no unhallowed tread must be 
suffered to violate this region ; the very last of many 
things, not to be dared in connection with God, is 
the remotest suspicion affecting the hidden prin- 
ciples of His Moral Being. 

The Perfect Virtue of the Supreme Mind offers a 
noble opportunity of elevated, freshening, and sanc- 
tifying illustration. The field is inexhaustibly in- 



ENGLISH THEISTS. 27 

teresting, and the labour would be abundantly re- 
munerative, to take up separately the eternal and 
immutable principles of Moral Excellence, and to 
exliibit their place in the Infinite Nature. But it 
falls to us rather, to deal with the reality and perfec- 
tion of Spiritual Excellence in Grod, as the necessary 
and the only foundation of those great laws by which 
the administration of the universe must be guided. 
It is enough to touch the " summa fastigia rerum," 
to suggest without pursuing trains of thought which 
admit of indefinite extension, and contain, also, the 
germs of many a profound and vexed speculation. 
The more willingly a limit is imposed here, because 
it is in a later stage of the discussion that most 
minds will feel acutely the pressure of difficulty — 
difficulty on some sides insurmountable. Here the 
necessity is to cherish and strengthen, rather than 
to create, conviction and sympathy; for, thus far, 
the disciples and the rejectors of written Kevelation 
are nearly at one. 

The first and best of English Theists, Lord Her- 
bert, devoutly recognises the rectitude^ purity^ and 
goodness of the Supreme; indeed, his profound, 
childhke veneration of God, and his humility and 
earnestness, are most touching. The brother of 
George Herbert, but for his strange rejection of the 



28 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

Divine Word, was not unlike, in spirit, the poet of 
''the Temple." Lord Shaftesbury, more elegant 
and accomplislied than Herbert, but less profound, 
religiously and morally, does not violate the holier 
region of the Divine. With all his errors, he up- 
holds the essential distinction between right and 
wrong, even warms into nobility of sentiment when 
he describes the beauty of virtue, and adores the 
wisdom, justice, and benevolence that preside in the 
government of the world. Chubb wants the grace 
(not the force) of the aristocratic defenders of Theism, 
and offends by a peculiar aridity, hardness, and cold- 
ness. He also refuses the idea of a particular provi- 
dence, which the others did not. But even he does 
not impugn the moral excellence of the Almighty ; 
and in his supplement to ^^the previous question," 
inserts in the title ^^ wherein the moral character of 
God is more fully vindicated." ^ Lord Bolingbroke, 
sparkling, piquant, masterly, but splenetic and ma- 
lignant, oversteps the limits which had been marked 
by Herbert and Shaftesbury, and assumes a more ir- 
reverent and defiant front. His views of providence, 
and even of immortality, are more than suspicious ; 
and the doctrine of future rewards and punishments 

^London, 1725. 



BOLINGBROKE. 29 

he throws aside without disguise. Ostensibly, his 
rejection of this arises from the desire to maintain 
the character of God ; and very ingeniously he 
charges theologians with blaspheming the Almighty, 
and misrepresenting the condition of the world and 
the conduct of providence, in order to found an 
argument for a future state. With his false views 
of a judgment to come, and also of moral obligation 
and of the nature of virtue, it is not wonderful that 
his scepticism should seem to extend even to God. 
But even he never denied the Divine moral character ; 
he could not. On the contrary, he upheld it very 
distinctly and decidedly, but he sought to becloud it 
and so to envelope it in mystery that it should no 
longer serve the purposes of artificial theology. 
*'The Divine (moral) attributes," he says"^, "are 
exercised in such innumerable relations, absolutely 
unknown to us, that though we are sure the exercise 
of them in the immensity of the universe is always 
directed by the All-Perfect Being to that which is 
fittest on the whole, yet the notions of created beings, 
like us, who see them in one relation alone, cannot 
be applied to them with any propriety, nor with any 
certainty, sufficient to make them objects of imita- 

* Bolingbroke*s Works, vol. ill. p. 412. London, 1754. 



80 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

tion." Again: "As little can we rise from out 
moral obligations to His (God's) supposed moral 
attributes. I call them supposed^ because after all 
that has been said to prove a necessary connection 
between His physical and His moral attributes, the 
latter may all be absorbed in His wisdom." * Again : 
" God is, in their (theologians') notions of Him, no- 
thing more than an infinite man. He knows as we 
know, is wise as we are wise, and moral as we are 
moral." f Again: "His (Dr. Sam. Clarke's) whole 
chain of reasoning, from the moral attributes down- 
wards, is nothing more than one continued applica- 
tion of moral human ideas to the designs and conduct 
of God.":}: Again: "They (divines) parcel out a 
divine moral nature into various attributes like the 
human, and determine precisely what these attributes 
require that God should do, to make His will con- 
formable to the eternal ideas of fitness." § With all 
this, Bolingbroke does not deny Absolute Moral Per- 
fection as necessarily belonging to the Almighty. 
The very reverse. He will not, indeed, admit that 
this is the ground of moral obligation ; and hence 
asserts that virtue in God must be so entirely 
different from virtue in us, that we are not justified 

* Vol. iv. p. 18. tP-296. 

X Yol. V. p. 5. § P. 77. 



BOLINGBROKE. 81 

in reasoning from tlie one to tlie other. But lie 
distinctly and strongly upholds the Perfect Excellence 
of God. ^^It required," says, he, ^^no such meta- 
physical apparatus as Clarke employed, somewhat 
tediously, to prove that all perfections, natural and 
moral, must be attributes of the self-existent, all- 
perfect author of all being ; but he does not prove what 
he asserts, and on the proof of which his whole argu- 
ment turns, that these attributes are the same in God 
as they are in our ideas, ^'^ ^ '^ A necessary connection 
between the natural and moral attributes of God, no 
man who believes in Him will deny ; all the perfec- 
tions of an all-perfect being must be consistent and 
connected; to be otherwise, would be imperfection." f 
^^ They (Theists) ascribe all conceivable perfections 
to God, moral and physical, which can belong to a 
divine nature and to a supreme being." ^ " Suppos- 
ing the world we inhabit to be a scene of as many 
evils as it is represented to be, the arguments drawn 
from thence against the wisdom, or power, ot goodness 
of God are inconclusive," § After describing the 
condition of mankind. Lord Bolingbroke says : 
'* What could we ask more of a beneficent Creator? 
Let us adore His goodness and His justice (if we 

* Yol. iv. p. 249. t P- 224. 

% P. 298. § Yol. V. p. 1. 



32 THE MYSTEKY, ETC. 

will ascribe our ideas of moral attributes to Him) as 
well as His wisdom and His power." * " He (the 
Theist) is as far from denying tliem (the moral attri- 
butes) as lie is from denying tbe wisdom and the 
power of God." " He acknowledges whatever God 
has done to be just and good in itself, though it does 
not appear such in every instance, conformably to his 
ideas of justice and goodness." f " God is infinitely 
wise ; He does always that which is fittest to be done. 
That which is fittest to be done is always just and 
good, and the dispute is over." % 

" The dispute, indeed, is over ; the Moral is no less 
essential and real than the Intellectual nature of the 
Great Being ; the one is necessarily involved in the 
other. Virtue ^5 wisdom — wisdom applied to the 
highest sphere of thought and of volition ; vice is 
always folly, utter folly and irrationality. Intelli- 
gence, pure, mere intelligence, eternally dissociated 
from spiritual principles, perceptions, and sympa- 
thies, is inconceivable. The idea, besides, is per- 
fectly gratuitous, sustained by no experience, and 
suggested by no plausible reason. One shall say, 
the lower animals exhibit signs of intellect, though 
they unquestionably have no moral faculty, no 

* Vol. V. p. 112. t Vol. iv. p. 299. % P. 300. 



VIRTUE ETERNAL. 33 

responsible nature. But this is their imperfection^ 
their degradation : it is felt by all, and acknowledged 
to be their imperfection, their degradation. In short, 
the reality of moral perceptions and judgments in 
the Divine Being is argued precisely on the grounds 
which sustain our belief in His Wisdom and Know- 
ledge, and, in point of fact, as we have seen, none 
who have any consistent idea of an Intelligent First 
Cause are found to deny the Moral Nature, the 
Moral Perfection of that Cause. 

The old; well-tried and solid, but hard and arid 
argument, must not be overlooked here. Virtue^ as 
conceived by our minds, necessarily generates the idea 
of the existence of a Virtuous Being. The thing it- 
self in its essential elements, we see and know in- 
tuitively, must be eternal and immutable. With the 
same certainty with which we believe that there is 
within us a faculty of moral intuition, we are con- 
vinced that Virtue, never was, and never can be, other 
than it is, that it is independent of all circumstances, 
times, and beings, — an everlasting, unchangeable 
reality,^ But itself is simply an attribute, a mode 
of Being, not a Being ; and it has, therefore, and can 



* Clarke's Evid. of Rev. Religion, pp. 40 — 46. London, 
1716. 

2* 



34 THE MYSTEEY, ETC. 

have, no real existence, out of conception, except in a 
substance, a subject : itself, as an attribute, eternal, it 
presumes tlie existence of an eternal nature, in which 
it resides — an infinitely righteous, truthful, loving, 
and pure nature, of which, though not the product, 
it must have been the everlasting possession and 
glory. " It is all one," says Cud worth, in his lum- 
bering but strong way, 'Ho affirm that there are 
eternal essences of things and verities necessarily 
existing (he himself applies this to moral as well as 
intellectual entities), and to say that there is an 
Infinite, Eternal Mind, necessarily existing ; they are 
nothing but modifications of mind or intellect, and 
therefore the First Intellect (we add, Moral Nature) 
is essentially and archetypally such essences and 
verities." ^ 

Conscience in man guides us, in a silent but quite 
resistless way, up to the Uncreated, Infinite Con- 
science, the Eternal Sense of right and wrong, the 
Eternal dwelling of Spiritual Attributes, convictions, 
and principles. The Creator cannot have implanted 
in the human breast a sense of virtue and of vice, 
an appreciation, an admiration, a love of what is 



* Oudworth's Eternal and Immutable Morality. Works, 
vol. iii. p. 628. London, 1845. 



SPIRITUAL EXCELLENCE. 85 

spiritually excellent, while He Himself is destitute 
of tMs quality. If man be so constituted that lie 
approves and admires right, and condemns (even 
though he be capable of perpetrating) wrong, man^s 
Maker must Himself be virtuous ; never could He 
have created a nature which is compelled by its very 
constitution to despise and hate Him, if He be not 
morally excellent. This is not all — ^the excellences 
and powers that are found in creatures descended 
from the Creator as their original source; it is 
impossible that a single virtue can exist in them 
which has not its only origin in Him. The work- 
manship reveals, in its structure, tlie qualities of 
the artificer : He who endowed man with moral 
powers must himself be a moral being. All the 
goodness of creatures is an impartation from Him 
— a reflection of His uncreated excellence — only 
a reflection*^ and reflected light is not comparable 
with, direct unborrowed effulgence. Virtue in man 
is mediate, derived, limited; virtue in the Maker 
is immediate, original, Infinite. The Infinite Nature 
is necessarily Infinite in all its properties and powers, 
— Moral, no less than Intellectual or Physical, — 
and whatever spiritual grace is found in it must exist 
in the highest possible degree. In a sphere which 
knows no beginning, no end, no change, limitation 



36 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

on any side is impossible, but, above all, on tliat 
side wHcli reaches to tlie most sacred depths of 
Divine Being. The contrary supposition is perfectly 
gratuitous, it is ruinous. The slightest taint of false- 
hood, injustice, impurity, malevolence in the Infinite, 
is not only without ground from within or from with- 
out, but it would involve the most disastrous conse- 
quences to the universe — consequences which do not 
follow, in fact, but the very reverse of which we 
behold everywhere. Such a thing believed, even 
suspected, there could be no security for good 
anywhere, evermore, and no refuge from the dread 
of evil; trust in God, or between man and man, 
would be impossible. We return with entire as- 
surance to the general argument — if, in reference 
to any property or power, in any direction, we 
should imagine limitation in the Infinite, if we 
should admit the possibility that there might be 
something higher and better than His Nature, that 
moment we should fall from the essential conditions 
of the idea of the Highest Being, the fountain of 
all other Being, beyond whom there is nothing to 
be conceived. In Him, all the possible is the also- 
lutely true : every possible excellence, and every ex- 
cellence in the highest possible degree, must glow 
in His Pure and Effulgent Nature. Infinite Eecti- 



DIFFICULTIES OF PROVIDENCE. 87 

tude, Infinite Purity, Infinite Benevolence, Infinite 
Trutli, Infinite Moral Beauty and Worth., must find 
in Him their original. Eternal abode. 

Last of all, in the essential relation in which. 
He stands to the tuman race, we have a ground 
of security for the rectitude and benevolence of 
His administration, additional to that which arises 
from His spiritual attributes, in themselves con- 
sidered. He is the Father of Minds, and His treat- 
ment of them must be parental. Beyond tlie claims 
of Eectitude, or even Benevolence, we cannot err 
in believing that He must be infinitely merciful and 
tender, as a Father to Ids own offspring. 

On the ground of general reasoning, the difl&culty 
of satisfying the reflecting and the candid is by no 
means great. Indeed, it is not here chiefly, or at all, 
that difficulty is felt ; it is in the sphere of experi- 
ence and of fact. The existing condition of this 
world, it is said, is irreconcilable with an Infinite 
Governing power. There are such revolting in- 
equalities in the system of things, such an amount 
of crime, on the one hand, and such desolating cala- 
mities, such, enormous and universal suffering, on the 
other hand, that it is hard to retain a steady confi- 
dence in the Eectitude, and still more in the Good- 



38 THE MYSTEKY, ETC. 

ness, of tlie Supreme Enler, or, if in these, at all 
events in His Wisdom and His Power. 

The aim of onr investigation is to exhibit the har- 
mony between the true Doctrine of the Infinite and 
the Facts of the Universe. But while pursuing this 
aim we must suggest that no inability on the part of 
man to solve the difficulties of the case can justify 
even suspicion, far less disbelief of the essential moral 
attributes of the Supreme. Eeason will pronounce 
that the cause of such inability must lie in ourselves, 
in the limitation of our faculties and of our know- 
ledge, and will judge that, with higher powers and 
more comprehensive views, we might behold only har- 
mony where now we see disorder, and only consis- 
tency where now we find irreconcilable contra- 
diction. 

Aided by the hints which have been thrown out, 
we can understand what the principles on which the 
Administration of the Universe is conducted, must 
necessarily be; and Eeason demands, all contrary 
appearances notwithstanding, that we recognise this 
transcendent necessity, and hold fast the doctrine of 
Infinite Moral Perfection. The principles of the 
Divine Working can have their origin only in the 
Divine Nature, and must be entirely and perfectly 



MOEAL PERFECTION OF INFINITE ABIDES. 39 

consisteiit with its moral attributes. They must 
be — necessarily must he — not only those of per- 
fect wisdom and justice, but of perfect sincerity 
and ingenuousness, of pure generosity and dis- 
interestedness. Not only can there be no un- 
righteousness and no folly with the Supreme, but 
there can be no duplicity, no deceptive conceal- 
ment, no putting forth of a pretext while the 
real ground lurks behind, no selfishness, not 
even indifference to the interests of the humblest 
creature, nothing but pure transparency, but irre- 
pressible righteousness and goodness in all His 
ways. 

The Eectitude, Veracity, Purity, Benevolence, 
and, withal, Paternity of the Divine Being, we 
take, as first principles, Eternal, Immutable Truths. 
Even if we be unable to comprehend the con- 
sistency of these truths with the phenomena of 
the Universe, they are not, therefore, the less 
truths; and we shall no more think of denying 
the truths because of the phenomena, than of sus- 
pecting the reality of the phenomena because of 
the truths. Eight Eeason commands and com- 
pels us, in the face of whatever difficulties, to 
hold fast the Infinite Moral Perfection of the Su 



40 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

preme Governor of tlie Universe. It is impossible 
tliat He can do anything that is not morally ex- 
cellent and beautifal, worthy of the approbation, 
the admiration, and the veneration of all His intelli- 
gent creatures. 



PAET SECOND. 

' THE INFINITE " IN THE UNIVERSE. 



IN THKEE CHAPTERS. 

Chapteb I. The Infinite One Creating. 

n. The Infinite One in the Kingdom of Matter. 
m. The Infinite One in the Kingdom of Spirit. 



[41] 



CHAPTER I. 

THE INFINITE ONE CKEATINO. 

His First Act outwards — Incomprehensible, not contradic- 
tory TO REASON — "The Unconditioned" — Non-Being, un- 
conditioned — Hegel's Axiom — The Infinite, the Eternal 
Positive — Pantheism, contradictory — Cousin — Fact of 
Creation, alone — ^Locke — Thoughts our Creations — Mind, 
Matter, Divine Creations 



[4S] 



EXISTENCK BEGINNINQ. 

The First Act of Being, outwards^ plunges us in 
unfathomable mystery. The idea^ of whicli the 
generic term, Creation, is the accepted sign, it is for 
ever impossible for us to grasp; it belongs to In- 
finity, to a distinctive forthgoing of power properly 
Infinite. One or two faltering steps, towards the 
abysmal secret, we venture to take with trembling 
and awe. 

Creation is not something rising up out of absolute 
nonentity. It assumes existence in oneform^ it sup- 
poses Being, Being Infinite and Eternal — ^but only 
this. As the act of the Eternal One, Creation is not 
the bringing of something out (/nothing, as if nothing 
were either the material or the place, out of which 
something is brought,^ It is not the conversion of 
nothing into something, as if nothing were a kind of 
substratum on which the Infinite Power acted. But, 
so far as we are capable of conceiving and embody- 
ing it, Creation is "causing existence to begin;" an 
instant ago, it is supposed, there was absolutely 



* Oudworth's Intell. Sys. vol. iii. sec. ii. chap. v. London, 
1845. 



CREATION INCOMPREHENSIBLE. 45 

nothing save the Infinite Life, but this instant some- 
thing else has begun to be. 

The idea which is thus expressed is altogether 
incomprehensible, but we are justified in affirming 
that it is not contradictory. It has never been 
shown — it can never be shown — to be contradic- 
tory ; it stands opposed to no fact of experience, and 
no legitimate deduction from experience, and to no 
principle or conclusion of reason. Incomprehensible 
it is, like everything else belonging to Infinity, but 
not contradictory, and therefore not impossible ; and 
if it be only not impossible, it must be true, for it 
offers the only believable ground on which the facts 
of the universe can be interpreted. Either Creation 
is a reality, and the Eternal Unconditioned Being 
has caused all other existence, or all that now exists 
is Everlasting and Independent. If there be a single 
atom not eternal, the creation of this involves all the 
difficulty and incomprehensibility of the creation of 
a universe. That difficulty is not one of quantity, 
of degree, but of kind. Creation at all, not its ex- 
tent, but Creation, to any extent, causing existence 
to begin where before there was absolutely nothing, 
constitutes the entire difficulty here. The choice, 
therefore, is only between these two things, exist- 
ence caused by the Eternal *^ One," or the Eternity 



46 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



of a?Z Matter, even to tlie smallest atom. This last, 
it could easily be shown, involves contradictions 
direct and numberless, wHcli it would outrage reason 
to admit. Creation, on the other hand, Eeason has 
no alternative but to accept. Mysterious, incom- 
prehensible as it is, it must be true. It is the only, 
— absolutely the only — admissible solution of the 
facts of the Universe. 

Once, the Universe, as we speak, was not, and 
**The Eternal" existed alone. We strive to go 
back in thought, to Absolute Being, Unconditioned 
Being. Continental philosophy professes to take 
this as its starting point, and to evolve the Universe 
consequentially from its Primitive Centre. But the 
starting point has ever been an assumption: that 
which is first, in reality, is the last which we reach. 
Profoundly the German mind has speculated on the 
awful subject of Ontology, and not ingloriously, if 
we regard some of the living, lustrous, mighty 
thoughts to which it has given birth, but how vainly 
if we look to the sober and solid determination of 
the life — and death — questionings of the human 
soul. In the region, for example, into which we are 
now daring to pierce, the Eternal past, when the 
Infinite, the Unconditioned, existed alone, we are met 
by that first axiom of the Hegelian philosophy, 



THE INFINITE, THE ETERNAL POSITIVE. 47 

*' Das Seyn ist Das Nichts." ^ With instinctive 
horror we shrink back from the merciless paradox — 
the blasphemy. The aphorism, indeed, has a mean- 
ing, a profound meaning : Absolute Being and Ab- 
solute Nothing are comparable; both are uncon- 
ditioned. Non-entity is unconditioned, absolutely 
so. But, even in the very act of conceiving, we do 
convert nothing into something. It is uncondi- 
tioned, because it is nothing, but in joining with it 
a qualifying term we destroy it ; — ^it is nothing, has 
nothing; no substance, no qualities, no definition, 
no conception even. It is pure negation, — the ne- 
gation of all reality and of all conceptivity. 

Unconditioned Being is reality, the truest and 
awfullest reality. It is, indeed, unconditioned, as 
we now strive to conceive it, before creation ; un- 
conditioned ab extra. It is unconditioned Infinity. 
But it is not therefore a negative, but a positive ; 
Infinity is the highest positive, and Finity is the 
true negative, though it be verbally and grammati- 
cally positive. Infinity is the Everlasting Positive. 
The Unconditioned in the Eternal Past, Alone, before 
creation, is Infinite self-consciousness and self-go- 
vernment, having, not nothing, but a real nature, as 

* Die Lelire vom Seyn, J 87. Seite 99., Encyclopadie. Hei- 
delberg, 1827. 



48 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

its sphere. It is Eternal Eeason, not as a slumbering 
potentiality, but as an Infinite Activity, ranging in" 
deed through, an inner domain, but that domain 
boundless, inexhaustible in possessions and in powers, 
the dwelling of Infinite Truth and Infinite Excel- 
lence. 

The attempt is worse than vain to conceive of 
Creation as an Eternal, rather than a Temporal, act. 
The idea is as old as Aristotle, — perhaps as Plato. 
Certainly the followers of Plato broadly asserted it, 
if he did not. Eternal Creation, whether viewed as 
an irresistible and Eternal Necessity of the Divine 
Nature, or as a voluntary yet Eternal emanation and 
impartation^ is self-contradictory. It is of the same 
kind with Eternal Succession or Eternal Change. 
Creation is an act, and, as such, presupposes an 
Actor prior to itself. And if the act of Creation were 
Eternal, the thing created must, on the same ground, 
be eternal also. Matter must be eternal, and we 
must resign ourselves to all the contradictions from 
which the doctrine of Creation is the proper and the 
only escape. Eternal Creation, hke Eternal Succes- 
sion, is a contradiction in terms. 

If Creation be not and cannot be Eternal, the 
words earlier or later can have no application to it. 
Let it have occurred sixty thousand ages, or sixty 



I 



THE INFINITE AND CREATION. 49 



tliousand myriads of ages, or sixty thousand times 
sixty tliousand myriads of ages ago, the difference is 
not even as the dust in the balance. In sober truth, 
there is no difference, and there can be none. Crea- 
tion, whensoever realised, is alike amidst the All-en- 
compassing, Infinite, Indivisible, Eternity, which has 
no beginning, no end, no parts, from which it is alike 
ever absolutely separated, and to which it can never 
be either near or remote, to which indeed, in its being 
and mode, alike, it can in this respect sustain no rela- 
tion whatever, but must always abide an essentially 
different and opposite thing. On the one hand, the 
All-encompassing Eternal is, ever was, and ever will 
be. Alone, Unchangeable, untouched, unreached by 
Creation. On the other hand. Creation is also, in 
its sphere, alone, apart, wholly ".5m generis ^ It is, 
for the first time, in the universe, a beginning, when 
before there was never a beginning. It is the begin- 
ning of a new mode of existence, and of a new series 
of existences; a source and scene of changes^ when., 
ever before, no change was possible ; the only scene 
of changes, for to the Infinite Necessary Existence 
change is contradiction, would be destruction. Crea- 
tion is the beginning of space, introducing an order 
of existences to which, for the first time, the relations 
of magnitude and number were possible. It is the 
3 



50 

beginning of time, introducing an order of existences 
whose duration was limitable and measurable. It is 
tlie beginning of all derived, dependent, finite Being. 

The Creation, in all its parts, in this view of it, 
stands essentially and infinitely removed from tlie 
Eternal Self-existent Mind, its Author. Between 
these two there can only be for ever a measureless se- 
paration. And thus. Pantheism is not a mere fallacy, 
it is an absurdity, and does no other than merge the 
Creator in the Creation, making nim not a separate, 
still less an independent, existence, but The All ; The 
All are Glod and God is The All. Or it supposes a 
Substans, a Substratum, One sole Personality, and 
all else to be only successive and varying manifesta- 
tions of the One Personalty. The true doctrine of 
Creation shows that this is nothing less than an im- 
possible and self-contradictory confounding of the 
Infinite with the Finite, of the Eternal with the 
Temporal. 

With unfeigned humility, exception must be taken 
to the views of M. Cousin on this great subject. 
One who, if not himself the first, at least after Sir 
"William Hamilton, stands pre-eminent in Europe as 
a philosopher, who has done such service, not to the 
philosophy of his own country only, but to philo- 
sophy as a world-wide heritage of man, deserves 



COUSIN-. 51 

genuine reverence, and any sentiments of Ms ought 
to be treated with the deepest consideration. Be- 
sides, where the subject itself is so abstract, and 
the reasoner is so profound a metaphysician, we may 
not thoroughly understand what is designed to be 
conveyed. Still the language which M. Cousin 
employs must be reprobated, because it is so sus- 
ceptible of a mischievous interpretation; nay, we 
must maintain that, to all ordinary minds, in its 
obvious meaning, it does support an error with 
which, nevertheless, he himself is certainly not 
chargeable. Unquestionably; he is no Pantheist. He 
maintains unequivocally that God is Cause, and the 
Universe effect ; that God is the Infinite Cause, and 
the Universe a Finite Effect, and that the two are 
therefore absolutely and for ever separate. But 
what is the meaning of the words, "God creates; 
he creates in virtue of his creative power, and he 
draws the Universe not from Wonentity^ but from 
himself who is Absolute Existence. His distinguish- 
ing characteristic being an absolute creating force, 
which cannot but pass into act, it follows, not that 
the creation is possible, but that it is necessary ; it 
follows that, since God is creating ceaselessly and in- 
finitely, creation is inexhaustible and sustains itself 



52 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

perpetually." ^ "We do not refer to that necessity, 
which is here represented as governing God in 
creating, though it is difficult to dissociate this from 
a denial of liberty to the Divine Agent. The accom- 
plished American translator of Cousin's Critique of 
Locke, Dr. Henry, of New York University f , 
maintains that all the necessity, for which M. Cousin 
argues, is a necessity relative to our conceptions 
only, while the Infinite Cause is personally altogether 
free. But what can the words mean, " God draws 
the universe, not from nonentity but from himself 
who is Absolute Existence?" In Himself there 
can be only Divinity. From Himself He can draw 
only Divinity. Is not this to make the universe 
divine. Creation the Uncreated, the All but a modi- 
fication and manifestation of "The One?" This 
surely can be distinguished by no name more appro- 
priate than Pantheism. 

^ " Dieu cree done : il cree en vertu de sa puissanee creatriee, 
il tire le monde, non du neant qui n'est pas, mais de lui-meme 
qui est I'existence absolue. Son caractere eminent etant una 
force creatriee absolue qui ne pent pas ne pas passer a Tacte, il 
suit non que la creation est possible, mais qu'elle est neces- 
saire ; il suit que Dieu creant sans cesse et infiniment, la cre- 
ation est inepuisable et se maintient constamment." — Cours de 
PhiloL, Legon Ve. Paris, 1828. 

t Preface, p. 13. 



LOCKE. 53 

It is perilous, and always vain, to speculate on 
the act of Creation and its mode; the attempt to 
render it comprehensible is suicidal ;. for ever, as 
belonging to the region of the Infinite, must the 
conception be for us impossible. There are no 
analogies to guide or help our minds. The fact 
of Creation stands absolutely solitary. At the same 
time there are some things in our individual mental 
history which, so far as they reach, in the way of 
remote illustration, are not to be overlooked. Our 
thoughts and volitions, for example, are, in a modi- 
fied sense, our creations,^ They are real entities, 
which had no previous existence till they were 
called into being by our minds. But it cannot 
escape us, that not only the occasions, but often 
the materials of our thoughts and volitions, are fur- 
nished from without. Mr. Locke has with great 
felicity brought forward another fact (for such we 
hold it to be), which has the advantage of bringing 
Creation, as a Divine act, near to our present ex- 
perience, and of presenting it, not in the remote 
past, but literally realised every hour, — ^the fact of 
the constant creation of human souls. As it respects 



* Cousin : Cours de THistoire de la Philosophic, torn. iL 
pp. 129— U3. 



54 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

matter, creation is, to our conception, only past. 
There are endless changes and transformations of 
matter; but, so far as our knowledge and observa- 
tion reach, there is no new creation of a single 
particle. We have no evidence, and, therefore, no 
belief of such a thing. But there must be a never- 
ceasing creation of human souls. '^ That frame of 
particles (he is speaking of the human body) is not 
you, it makes not that thinking thing you are . . . . 
therefore, when did that thinking being begin to 
be ? If it did never begin to be, then have you 
always been a thinking thing from eternity ; the 
absurdity whereof I need not confate till I meet 
with one who is so void of understanding as to 
own it. If, therefore, you can allow a thinking 
thing to be made out of nothing, as all things that 
are not eternal must be, why also can you not 
allow it possible for a material being to be made 
out of nothing, by an equal power, but that you 
have the experience of the one in view, and not of 
the other ? Though, when well considered, creation 
of a spirit will be found to require no less power 
than the creation of matter. Nay, possibly, if we 
would emancipate ourselves from vulgar notions, and 
raise our thoughts as far as they would reach to 
a closer contemplation of things, we might be able 



THOUGHTS OUR CREATIONS. 55 

to aim at some dim and seeming conception how 
matter miglit at first be made and begin to exist, 
by the power of that Eternal First Being ; but to 
give beginning and being to a spirit would be 
found a more inconceivable effect of omnipotent 
power.""^ 

Perhaps this estimate of conceivableness is ques- 
tionable ; the ground on which it is supported is not 
exhibited, and there are some obvious circumstances 
that strongly favour quite the opposite conclusion. 
Minds bear a resemblance to the Infinite Mind, 
which matter does not. They, Hke that Mind, are 
spiritual, rational, moral beings. Their nature and 
their properties are manifestly allied to those of 
the Eternal, though the distance be still measure- 
less between the finite and the Infinite, the created 
and the Uncreated. The act of creation, causing 
something to hegin to he — this, in any form, is 
utterly incomprehensible by us ; and perhaps it is 
idle to talk of degrees of incomprehensibility. But 
were the notion of gradation admissible, we should 
maintain that the creation of minds was more easily 
conceived than the creation of matter, which is so 

* Essay on Hum. Under, book iv. chap. x. p. 18. 



56 THE MYSTEKY, ETC. 

far removed in its nature from tlie Creator. On 
the same ground also, if we dared to speculate on 
sucb. a subject, we should imagine the earliest crea- 
tions in the universe to have been creations of 
spirits, finite likenesses of the Self-existent. Per- 
haps the first cycles of Time, vast in their stretch, 
beyond our power to imagine, measured the dura- 
tion of myriads of pure and noble minds. Perhaps 
the creation of matter was a far later manifestation of 
Infinite Power, when beings of a compound nature 
were summoned into existence, endowed with organs 
and faculties, to which this new product was adapted. 
Whensoever it was, we are ready to grant, to any 
who put forward this difl&culty, that the creation of 
matter is more^ not less, inconceivable by us, than 
the creation of mind. 

What matter itself is we know not, but its pro- 
perties and powers are essentially opposite, ^^toto 
genere,^^ to those of mind. From the Infinite Mind 
matter in its nature must stand yet more perfectly 
distinct. It has even been argued that, since 
the effect cannot possess qualities which are not in 
the cause, and since the effect, in this instance, is 
material, the cause must be material also; or if 
the Infinite One be purely spiritual, then matter can 



MIND, MATTEE, DIVINE CREATIONS. 57 

be no creation, but must have existed eternally. It 
is admitted readily tliat the effect can never exceed 
the cause, can never possess what the cause has not 
power to impart ; but it is distinctly denied that the 
effect must be only a form or mode of the cause. In 
this case creation, whether of matter or mind, were 
absolutely impossible. It would follow, that an 
Infinite Cause could produce only an infinite effect, 
which is an express contradiction and absurdity. But 
it is not necessary that the effect should be of the 
same nature with the cause. It is indeed necessary 
that there should be in the cause power to produce 
the effect, but this is all that is absolutely necessary. 
The only question, therefore, here is, Has ^Hhe 
Infinite" power to create matter ? Is the creation 
of matter, that is, of visible, tangible substance, im- 
possible ? Does it involve a contradiction ? These 
questions we have already asked and answered ; and 
can here only repeat that while the creation of matter 
is incomprehensible, it is not contradictory. To no 
facts or conclusion of experience, and to no principle 
of reason, is it centradictory ; not being contradic- 
tory, it is possible to One who is Infinite ; and being 
possible, it is certainly true, because it affords the 
only rational solution of existing facts. Matter can- 
8^ 



58 



THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



not be eternal. This is directly contradictory and 
impossible. The Oldest, the Primitive form oi Being ^ 
is mind, the exhaustless Fount of all other being. 
Mind, the One Eeigning Mind, is Eternal. All else 
is created, dependent, finite. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE INFINITE ONE IN THE KINQDOM 
OF MATTER. 

Uncreated and Created — First Relationship — Creating 
AND Governing, their Connection — Almighty Agency a 
universal Necessity — Physical Laws necessitate Idea 
OP Will in Combination with Power — God's Universal 
Presence and Working — " The One" reigning over All. 



{jS9l 



UNCONDITIONED AND CONDITIONED. 

The Uncreated is separated Infinitely from the 
Creation, but tlie two are connected, nevertlieless, 
intimately and indissolubly connected, and we liave 
tlie highest proof of the reahty of this fact, though 
we are incapable of comprehending its mode. They 
stand in the relation of cause and effect; the 
Almighty will of the Uncreated gave being to the 
Creation. This moment it was not; the Eternal 
was alone ; beside Him there was only the illimi- 
table non-being; the next moment the Creation 
was ; new being, not composed of pre-existing mate- 
rials, not formed out of God, a portion of His 
nature, an impartation from within, but another 
and new existence, the product of His creative 
volition, therefore belonging to Him inalienably. 
His property by a right of tenure absolutely unpa- 
ralleled — of which no analogy exists, or can exist — 
His property, because wholly and only his product. 
But is there no connection between the condi- 
tioned and "the Unconditioned," the created and 
the Uncreated, beyond that which is involved in 
the solitary fact of creation ? Did the connection 
terminate as it began, with an event which belongs 
to the unapproachable past? Once, ages ago, too 

[60] 



UNCREATED AND CREATED. 61 

remote to be calculated, Divine Yolition and Divine 
Power Avere put forth. Since that unascertainable 
moment liave they reposed evermore? Matter, with, 
its forces and laws, Mind, with its susceptibilities 
and capacities, sprang forth at the bidding of the 
Supreme ; were they, then, for ever abandoned to 
themselves — ^the Creator resting, as from the unbe- 
ginning Eternity, in the infinite sufficiency of His 
own Being; and ihey^ having received their original 
commission, forthwith fulfilling it, pursuing a fixed, 
inevitable path of self-development, without over- 
sight, interest, or control of any kind on the part 
of the Great Maker ? 

Perhaps, the Universe with all its materials, and 
properties, and powers once existing, a continued 
Divine Working in it is unnecessary and therefore 
not to be presumed. Many of its operations, be- 
sides, are so minute and so insignificant, that it 
would seem to degrade the Infinite Majesty to be 
connected with them, even cognizant of them. 
Perhaps, also, the events which have taken place 
in our world, and which are taking place every 
hour, are of such a nature that it would be fatal 
to the character of the Supreme Being if his hand 
were in any way concerned in them. Perhaps 
there is such an amount of crime and of suffering 



62 



THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



here, such disorder and tnmult, that His unsiillied 
purity and untroubled serenity are unbelievable, if 
he acted a constant part in human affairs. 

On grounds like these it is concluded, that the 
Great Being is altogether apart from the Universe, 
in His Active Power, His Volitions, His Affections, 
and almost His Observation. Beyond its first crea- 
tion, and its various endowments at its creation, He 
has had no connection with it. Since that moment, 
His personal agency has never been put forth in it, 
and as He is for ever unreached by all its changes, 
so is he for ever uninterested in them. 

We hold that there is, at least, one important fact 
which this sweeping conclusion overlooks — ^the crea- 
tion of human souls.^ The evidence is familiar and 
conclusive to most minds, by which this fact is esta- 
blished. If it be true, not only Divine agency, but 
Divine creative agency, is put forth every hour of 
every day. Human souls are new creations, and, if 
no otherwise, in this way at least, the Supreme is 
directly and profoundly involved in the course of 
events in our world. So far as we on this earth 
are concerned, He is not remote, but most near, and 
the very greatest events that take place here are the 
sole and direct work of His Hand. 

^ Lock's Essay, ut suprd. 



RELATION BETWEEN THE TWO. 63 

The common, popular argnment against the pre- 
sumption of a Uniyerse deserted by its Maker, is 
conclusive and entirely satisfactory ; that on no valid 
ground can it be degrading for Him to act in that^ 
however apparently insignificant, which it did not 
degrade Him to create. In the minutest and 
meanest of created things, there lie the intelligible 
traces of power and wisdom, and even goodness. 
The All-Seeing looks not with shame, but with 
serene complacency, on the workmanship of his 
hands, and beholds a glory, not hidden even from 
our imperfect vision, in the infi.nitely little, as well 
as in the magnificently grand. ISTor is the thought 
remote, that what we call the trivial^ are so con- 
stantly mixed up with the more important operations 
and changes of nature, so identified with them, so 
essential to them, and do so often 'constitute their 
very source and cause, that either there is no posi- 
tive Divine action in nature at all, or that action 
must be universal. It is impossible, that it should 
be limited to what we distinguish as the grander and 
more significant movements. 

As for the dark, moral aspects of the Universe, — 
the suffering, the tumult, and the crime, — these will 
come under review in another stage of our search ; 
in the meantime it is enough to say that they are 



64 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

in no way illuminated, by simply denying an actual 
Divine Providence. The Most High must at least 
be cognizant of them, unless we deny to him the 
attribute of Omniscience ; and were it possible for 
thom to disturb His serenity, this result would be 
as inseparable Jfrom the mere observation of them as 
from a direct agency in human affairs. This world 
could not become less God's creation, by his merely 
forsaking it, however utterly. He may or He may 
not take part in its affairs ; but in whatever sense 
its evils bear upon His character, that is determined 
as completely by the act of creation, as by the con- 
tinued agency of Providence. It is even quite 
possible that Providence, intsead of more deeply im- 
plicating The Holy One, may be the eflicient in- 
strument of mitigating the evils, which without 
blame in the Creator, have arisen in the creation; 
an idea, we hope to show, which admits of the most 
abundant confirmation. 

The hypothesis remains, that the universe, with 
its materials and properties and powers once exist- 
ing, a continued presence and working of God are 
not needed, and therefore are not to be supposed. 

In meeting this hypothesis, so far as it touches a 
Physical Providence, it is necessary to refer to the 
true meaning of the expression, powers and laws of 



PHYSICAL PROVIDENCE. 65 

matter. When we speak of mecliaiiical, clieinical) 
and physiological laws, as governing certain classes 
of phenomena, the idea conveyed is, that matter in 
certain circumstances undergoes certain changes, and 
that everywhere and always it undergoes the same 
changes, the circumstances being the same. But it 
is conveyed besides that the ground of this constancy 
is law^ that is, a fixed order, not caprice, not con- 
tingency, not uncertainty ; but distinct, determinate, 
inviolable arrangement. But whose arrangement? 
The word law — and the thought of which it is 
the sign— we maintain refers us back from itself to 
its origin and author. It contains two ideas. Will 
and Power ; a law (if the word be really meant for 
anything and be not a mere blind to our ignorance) 
is expressed Will and exerted Power. If the well- 
established conclusion of Science be that all the 
operations and changes of matter are invariable, and 
to our apprehension necessary ; indicating no such 
thing as contingency, irregularity, caprice ; when it 
is added that this is their law^ the real meaning, we 
maintain, can be no other than this, that some will 
chooses that it should be so, and some power secures 
that it shall be so. The earth, the mineral and the 
metal, the solid, the liquid and the gas, the inorganic 
and the organic substance, the vegetable and the 



GQ THE MYSTEEY, ETC. 

animal, all liave their fixed laws^ in perfect harmony 
with, which they never fail to act; that is, if the 
language have any meaning, every one of them, in 
all its changes, evinces the presence of an unalterable 
Will and an irresistible Power. But, as distinctly, 
the will and the power are not theirs, and cannot 
be contained in them^ but w.ust and can only belong 
to a Being, 

That unknown substratum, on which the laws of 
nature terminate, and all whose forms and products 
are simply the various effects of the operation of 
these laws, has no will and not less certainly it has, 
in itself, no power. Our globe, for example, has a 
motion upon its own axis, and it has, also, another 
motion around the sun ; on the one hand, there is a 
principle, in virtue of which it is ever repelled from 
the central orb ; and, on the other hand, there is a 
principle, in virtue of which it is ever drawn in 
exactly the contrary direction, and the result is, a 
nearly circular orbit. This is the law of the earth 
and the sun. But the only intelligible meaning, we 
maintain, is that some living Being wills that the two 
should thus act and re-act on one another, — a Being 
who has also power sufficient to secure that they 
shall thus act and re-act. No sane man imagines 
that there is a consciousness, still less a volition, in 



MATERIAL LAWS. 67 

the earth or in the sun. They have no purpose, no 
choice in their moyements. The will^ the purpose^ 
must be in the Great Being, altogether and only in 
Him, And, in like manner, \he force (as we speak) 
that on the one side attracts, and on the other side 
resists, is not, cannot be, in the sun, or in the earth. 
Are we to think that the sun is an actor, exerting a 
certain virtue inherent in his personality, and by this 
affecting the earth in a particular manner ? Power, 
ability to act, is a latent faculty which, through the 
medium of the possessor, produces, originates, causes, 
some change. But a causer of change, that is, an 
actor, without volition, without even consciousness, is 
a contradiction. The power (the ability to cause Si 
change) whereby the sun attracts the earth, can be 
only in a person, not in a thing. The Creator has so 
willed it; and his causative power secures that it shall 
be done. This is the only interpretation of the law 
of the earth and the sun ; at this moment, when the 
law is seen in operation, not ages ago, and at every 
moment when the phenomenon is presented, The 
Creator wills it, and His power effects it.* 



* It must be borne in mind, that we have here nothing to do 
with the doctrine of eternal succession or eternal necessity. 
We argue on the presupposition of Creation and a Creator. 
These granted, we seek to show what they necessarily involve, 



68 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

The idea of the Almighty impressing a law upon 
the sun and the earth at their creation, which 
therefore abides in force, and under which they of 
themselves must for ever continue to act, is a pure 
invention imposing upon us by sounds, which on 
examination are found to have no intelligible signi- 
ficance. If the law be regarded as His announced will 
or purpose, neither the sun nor the earth is capable 
of understanding the announcement, or of retaining 
the knowledge of it. They cannot receive a com- 
mand, and cannot obey it. The volition or purpose 
of the Divine Mind cannot be contained within them^ 
be imparted to them. In like manner, power, ability 
to originate change is incapable of being conveyed 
to them, of being retained by them ; they can never 
become actors, originators, senders forth of influence 
from themselves. Power, conscious voluntary activity, 
is in a Person only, not in unconscious matter. The 
Supreme can make use of the earth or the sun to do 
what he judges fit. He can cause them to act on one 
another as he pleases ; He can determine and secure 
that they shall invariably act in one way, so that we 
shall understand that this is his fixed law. But the 
meaning is, that at every moment when they so act, 

and how tlie phenomena of the universe are to be interpreted 
in consistency with them. 



FORCES OF NATURE. 69 

He is the direct, present, immediate, sole causer. Tlie 
laws of Nature are simply the will of the Almighty, 
and indicate to us the course which He wills to take 
T\dth Nature. They have, and can have, no existence 
except in the mind of God. They are not in nature, 
there is no ^' locus in quo " for them, except in a mind. 
In like manner the powers and forces of Nature have 
no existence except in Him. They are attributes of 
a being, not of a thing. Certain work is done, and 
we rightly argue, that there must be a worker, but 
a worker is a person, not a thing. 

The whole course of material nature, therefore, 
in its minutest and in its grandest departments, is 
nothing else than The Infinite acting, directly^ im- 
mediately acting. There is a substance (be it what 
it may) on which and through which he acts — and 
this also was created by him — ^but at every moment, 
everywhere, He is the direct, the immediately pre- 
sent, the sole Actor. The will, the purpose, and the 
power that are evinced are in him and in him only. 
In this light, Science is emphatically the record of 
Divine, Physical Providence ; it is the discovery and 
the announcement of that fixed course, according to 
which The Great Being has chosen to act, in all the 
spheres of material nature. "A law," says Dr. 
Whewell, *' supposes an agent and a power ; for it 



70 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

is the mode, according to wMcli the agent proceeds, 
the order according to whicb. the power acts. With- 
out the presence of such an agent, of such a power, 
conscious of the relations on which the law depends, 
producing the effects which the law prescribes, the 
law can have no efficacy, no existence. Hence we 
infer, that the intelligence by which the law is or- 
dained, the power by which it is put into action, 
must be present, at all times and in all places, where 
the effects of the law occur ; that thus the knowledge 
and the agency of the Divine Being pervade every 
portion of the universe, producing all action and 
passion, all permanence and change. The laws of 
matter are the laws which he, in his wisdom, pre- 
scribes to his own acts ; his universal presence is 
the necessary condition of any course of events ; his 
universal agency, the only organ of any efficient 
force." ^ 

But the subject admits of a more profound, if 
not a more satisfying exposition. In denying the 
reality of a Physical Providence, the necessity of 
a continued and direct Divine Working in the 
material universe, the distinction between the 
Creator and the Created is lost sight of " The 

* Astronomy and General Physics, p. 361. 



SELF-EXISTENCE, DEPENDENT EXISTENCE. 71 

Eternal One" is Self-existent, absolutely Inde- 
pendent ; his Being is its own ground and out of 
itself needs and has no ground of existence. We 
can give no account of it, except that it is, ever was, 
ever will be, ever must be, cannot but be. The 
Universe, on the other hand, is absolutely dependent. 
It began. At the will of the Creator, it began. 3q 
caused it, produced it by his mere power. The 
reason^ the sole reason, of its existence, lies in His 
will and power. It lecame^ it was what it was, 
because He willed it, and for no other reason what- 
ever. The ground, the foundation on which it stood 
was this only. It had no reason of existence, in 
itself. But having once existed, can it then, must it 
then of itself continue to exist, unless the Creator 
expressly will that it shall not ? Does a thing once 
created, that is, a thing the sole cause and ground 
of whose first being is in God, thereafter become 
5eZ/^existent and independent? Having received 
being, is it then able to sustain itself, has it then a 
reason, a ground for continuing in being, in itself? 
Does it need only the fact that it exists, to insure 
that it shall continue, unless some positive exercise 
of power be put forth to destroy it ? 

Nothing can be more decisive, more irrefragable, 
than the answer with which these questions must 



II 



72 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

be met. The Creator cannot give independence, 
in the sense here intended, for a single moment, 
to a single created thing. The reason, the ground 
for the created, in all the varieties which this term 
comprehends, the cause of its first being, the sole 
cause, is a distinct act of the Almighty will and 
power. On the very same principle, the cause, the 
sole cause of its continuing to be, at any moment 
afterwards, is a distinct act of the Almighty will 
and power. Just because it is created and not un- 
created, it can never be self-existent for an instant. 
The Supreme cannot communicate the attribute of 
self-existence ; for this would be to create uncreated 
substance. The reason, the ground of the existence 
of the universe, of every single atom at every 
moment, is not in itself but wholly and only in the 
Creator. It is nothing, has no meaning, no reality, 
no being, except in Him. Underneath it and in it, 
sustaining it, entirely causing it, are the Almighty 
will, the Almighty power. Let these be withdrawn 
for a moment, let them only not be, that is, let there 
be no present Divine volition, and that moment it 
is nothing for the sole ground of its being is gone. 

So far from God being able to abandon the 
universe (having once created it) to a course of 
independent self-development, his direct agency is 



DIVINE PRESEI^CE AND AGENCY UNIVERSAL. 73 

not less necessary every moment, to tlie very being 
of tlie minutest atom, than it was in tlie act of 
creation itself. Whether we refer to matter or to 
mind, there can be self-existence, independence, 
only in ^' The Unconditioned." Of mind and matter 
it is equally true, that the sole ground of its begin- 
ning to be and of its continuing to be is in the 
Almighty will, the Almighty power directly put 
forth; throughout the entire sphere of creation, 
therefore. Divine working is a universal, a constant, 
a profound reality. Strictly speaking, there is no 
"Worker in Nature but one, that is the Creator. In 
the flowing river and the restless ocean — ^in the 
waving plain and the solitary flower — ^in the gentle 
and the stormy wind — ^in the falling rain and the 
noiseless dew — in the beams of light and in the 
diffusion of heat — in all the activities of inorganic 
substance and of vegetable and of animal matter, 
it is verily ^^The Infinite," we behold— ^^ The 
Infinite" acting. In the spring time of the year, 
when the earth grows green, and sends up its 
wondrous life, and fields and woods and hills are 
clothed with beauty, it is '^The Infinite" acting, 
we behold. When, again, the produce of the earth 
is cut down, and by-and-by is gathered up, a mu- 
nificent provision for man and beast, — or when the 



74 THE MYSTEEY, ETC. 

snows of winter cover, and its jfrosts harden, tlie 
soil so lately clad with, verdure and laden with 
abundance, — or when we think of these changing 
seasons of the year, produced by the revolutions of 
our planet around the sun, — or when we turn to 
the myriads of planets, stars, suns, and systems that 
replenish space, and reflect on their mighty and com- 
plicated movements, and on the vast harmony that 
reigns throughout, — in all, it is "The Infinite" 
acting, we behold. His Will and His Power are 
the only forces in Nature. Everywhere there is a 
present God, acting not at random, but by law, on 
principle, with fixed design. There is a plan in 
His working, a distinct and by us discoverable plan; 
it is based on law, an extended and harmonious 
system of laws. There is a Providence as certainly 
as there is a Creator. The Great Being has not 
only given existence to a Universe, but he makes 
godlike provision for all its interests and wants. 
He sees forivard^ and his far-seeing eye connects 
the end with the beginning. His agency is a vast, 
complicated, but harmonious Whole, throughout 
which we trace not only one Mighty Hand, but one 
Unerring Mind. There is a glorious Unity in all 
the multiplicity and variety of mechanical, chemical, 
and physiological phenomena on our earth. And 



*^THE one" EEIGNING OVER ALL. 75 

our earth is but a fragment of the Mighty Unity 
of the Material Creation. The real, ceaseless acting 
of ^^ The Supreme " throughout Creation is as cer- 
tain as His Being. Physical Providence is all but 
a fact of science ; it is so direct an inference, that 
it may almost be classed with its established dis- 
coveries. How far beyond this, the Divine Working 
extends,— whether there be a Moral as well as a 
Physical Providence, and how much is compre- 
hended within the sphere of Moral Providence, — ^is 
yet to be ascertained. 



CHAPTER III. 

THK INFINITE ONE IN THE KINGDOM 
OF SPIRIT. 

Phenomena of Mind and of Matter — Disorder of Moral 
World — No Plan originating with Men, but in Mind op 
God — Hi3 Intelligence necessitates this — Eeioninq 
Moral Laws — Progressive Development — Not Direct — 
Realisation — Destiny op Man — Human and Divine 
Agency — How combined. 



[77] 



NECESSARY DISTINCTION. 

Physically considered, Mind needs equally with 
Matter tlie mighty and constant support of the 
Supreme; for its continued being, as for its first 
existing, there is demanded His immediate will and 
power, and, except in these, it has no ground of 
existence for a moment. 

But there is a clear distinction, nevertheless, as it 
respects even this kind of dependence, between 
Matter and Mind. Matter is a thing, not a person. 
It has no consciousness, no volition. It is not an 
actor, cannot contain, cannot put forth power. It is 
acted upon, is the medium through which agency may 
be conducted, but it, itself, cannot act. The forces 
of Nature are literally and only the Power of The 
Unseen, exerted through the medium of Nature, the 
various material modes in which He chooses to exert 
His Power. But a human mind is a person, a 
conscious, voluntary being, an actor. All its power 
is derived and dependent, but it possesses it neverthe- 
less. Its faculties of thinking, feehng, and willing 
are in it, not in its Maker ; they are its real attributes, 
of which, as belonging to it, it is distinctly conscious. 
And these faculties, besides, are consciously under 
its control, at its command, so that it can put them 

[7^ 



PHENOMENA OF MIND AND MATTER. 79 

fortli or not, according to its pleasure. It, itself, 
from itself, on its own grounds, can act, can originate, 
can strictly cause. Its actings and changes are 
produced by a power m it, which, it consciously 
exerts. 

In the region of mind, therefore, we are intro- 
duced to an essentially different class of facts, from 
those which are presented to us in the unconscious 
and involuntary phenomena of material nature. The 
thoughts, the reasonings, the conclusions, the prin- 
ciples, the motives, the feelings, the purposes, and the 
actions of human beings are their own^ belong to them, 
and are produced by them in a sense which has no 
counterpart in material objects and their changes. 
There is thus a world mthin material nature : we call 
it the spiritual world, and it is distinguished by 
elements that are altogether new ; those, namely, of 
intelligence, conscience, affection, and volition, which 
are powers properly belonging to it^ not to God. 
There is here an originative force, which is, indeed, 
derived and dependent, but is nevertheless real. It 
is conferred by the Supreme, and is every moment 
sustained only by his Almighty Will; but, so long as 
it is continued, it is the conscious possession of men, 
and is put forth, controlled, and entirely governed by 
them. That inner world, encompassed by the outer 



80 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

material world, is now before us. We look through 
the outward lives of men, in to the hidden formative 
principles of their lives ; we behold men acting upon 
themselves and towards others, in wisdom or in folly, 
usefully or injuriously, according or contrary to the 
law of right ; and we distinguish, on the one hand, 
their excellences and virtues, and on the other hand, 
their vices. Their deeds and their words reveal both, 
— vice often insinuating itself among the virtues, and 
virtue often not altogether wanting, even in their 
vices. 

The spiritual history of our world is full of 
mystery and diflS.culty, repellant and yet attractive, 
as a subject of thought. We behold man in his 
personal, social, political, and (through all) divine 
relations. We look on the products of his piety, his 
genius, his taste, and his industry, the effects result- 
ing from his principles or his passions, Jfrom the min- 
gled good and evil influences which he suffers to act 
upon him. We see these products and effects now 
on a limited and again on a more extended sphere, 
as well spread over all the past, as rising up from all 
the present. The spectacle is in great part only 
deeply distressing. How shall we connect with it 
an actual and pervading Divine agency ? In material 
nature, it is impossible to fail in discovering harmony 



DISORDER OF MORAL WORLD. 81 

and order. In the spiritnal world, it is impossible to 
deny all but universal confusion. In tbe past and 
in the present, there lies before us a heterogeneous 
mass, collected, apparently, by no design, and which 
no assignable principle of analysis can resolve. It 
is not merely that men are in great part a lawless, 
vicious, and suffering race of beings, but there is 
apparently no plan in human affairs, no reigning 
principle, no fixed course of procedure, indicating 
the adaptation of means to a distinct and exalted 
end. We pause, for in such language as this the 
facts are overstated and falsified. 

There is, indeed, no plan in the moral history of 
the world, which the race of man has formed for 
itself, and which is faithfully taken up, from age to 
age. It is most palpable that, at this moment, men 
of all nations and classes have no common ideas re- 
specting the aim to which their activities should be 
directed. Not less undeniable is it, that in no single 
age since the world began, have all men been thus 
at one in their ideas and aims. If this be true, the 
notion of a primitive and universal plan, transmitted 
from age to age and adopted by each in succession, 
must be the merest fiction. But because there is no 
such design among human beings, is there therefore 
no design, anywhere ? Are there no reigning laws, 
4* 



82 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

because men have not conceiyed and establislied 
them ? And wliile in material nature Divine agency is 
direct and constant, and universal, has that agency no 
place amidst all the activities of the spiritual world ? 
The idea is incompatible even with the attribute 
of intelligence. The Infinite Life gave being to 
Minds, is even more intimately related to them than 
to any other form of created existence. God is the 
Father of minds. It is inconceivable that the Cre- 
ator, the Father, should have had no design in bring- 
ing them into existence, — ^that, having given them 
a being, he should have omitted to give them a des- 
tiny, and should have abandoned them, without 
control, to mere self-development, be the issue what 
it may to which that self-development shall conduct. 
While, in the lower region of his dominions, all is 
manifest and mighty order, and the wisest ends are 
effected by the best adapted means, in this, the 
noblest part of his empire, is there nothing but wild 
confusion, universal contingency and uncertainty, in 
which, to whatever it may at last conduct, there is 
no Divine purpose, as there is no Divine inter- 
position? We repeat, that this is utterly incom- 
patible even with the attribute of intelligence. A 
wise being cannot act without design. The wisest 
of Beings cannot have acted without design. The 



EEIGNING MORAL LAWS. 83 

Infinite Intelligence must have liad an end, and one 
worthy of Himself, in the creation of human minds, 
and, if an end, must also have contemplated means 
no less worthy for accomplishing the end. Whether 
we be capable of discovering the end and of tracing 
out the means in their perfect adaptation, is not the 
question. But there must be — we argue it simply 
on the ground of the intelligence of the Great Being, 
— there must be a Divine plan ; and, if a plan, then 
also a distinct Divine Agency in the spiritual, as in 
the material, world. 

Amidst confusion, suffering, and crime, as it 
respects men, there must be method, law, as it re- 
spects God. Nor is it to be denied, that, wild as 
the disorder is which overspreads the moral history 
of our race, traces are still discernible, however con- 
fused and faint, of reigning and righteous law. Into 
the current speech of men, into the common proverbs 
of nations, the evidence, not of a flioating notion, but 
of a thorough conviction to this effect — the result 
of experience — ^has wrought itself. " Honesty is 
the best policy," is a special and not elevated appli- 
cation of a grand and universal truth, which men 
have at length reached. It is this, — *^ The Good 
are the Happy." *' Wrong-doers are Miserable." 
'' Virtue is Life, Vice is Death." Startling and 



84 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

harassing anomalies there may be, but, in tlie com- 
mon belief of men, the principles whidi have been 
named are supreme in human affairs. Amidst the 
vast disorder men discern certain paramount elements 
of order and of right. And it is felt, besides, that 
a nearer, wider, and more enlightened observation 
would establish a far more extended sovereignty of 
law, than is apparent to the casual eye. 

It cannot be doubted that, in the laws of Moral 
Providence, we behold the agency, not of man, but 
of the Supreme Guardian of immutable rectitude 
and truth. But were these laws discoverable in far 
greater number and precision than they are, the 
question would yet remain, to what are their opera- 
tions directed ? what is the ultimate end which they 
are working out ? — ^in other words, what is the plan 
of Moral Providence ? We cast back our thoughts 
on the ages of the past, as far as the historic period 
extends, and ask if, from the beginning onward till 
now, there are discernible traces of a continued path 
of God ? Most certainly, men have had no common 
plan. But is there no plan of God, which His esta- 
blished laws have been furthering, and which He is 
bringing nearer and nearer to its full development 
and realisation ? Is there evidence of progress from 
first to last, or is there not ? Progress in a direct 



PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT. 85 

line, in the moral history of the world, it is not pos- 
sible to discover. The course of things seems often 
to have been circular rather than direct. They ad- 
vance, reach a maximum point, and then appear to 
recede. It is quite capable of proof, that a later age, 
instead of being an advance on its predecessor, has 
sometimes been a manifest retrogression. A period 
of dense and continued darkness has sometimes suc- 
ceeded an age of comparative illumination. But if 
the path of the world has been described by circular 
lines, perhaps the circles have been in advance, the 
one of the other. The line has indeed often receded, 
but perhaps it has returned again, and not only 
touched its former maximum, but a new arc from a 
new centre has been commenced. Perhaps the 
centres of the successive circles have been in advance 
of one another ; and a line drawn through these 
centres is a line of progress, not rapid, but not, there- 
fore, the less sure and decided. The progressive ele- 
vation, of Humanity, on the whole, every intelligent 
and candid thinker acknowledges with joy. At this 
day, a larger surface of human society is illumi- 
nated, and the light is of a higher kind, penetrates 
more deeply, and is more thoroughly diffused, than 
at any previous period in the history of the world. 
In the development of intellect, of the moral nature, 



86 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

and of the social relations, in tlie diJBfusion througli 
the masses of whatever light in these directions is 
discovered, in the conversion, of ascertained truth 
into guiding principle, and in its practical application 
to the purposes of life, in knowledge of the true 
wants of man and of the means of supplying them, 
and in vigorous efforts, nobly intended and often 
wise and well-adapted, for bringing these means to 
bear, the world presents a condition at this moment 
incomparably in advance of any ever before attained. 
All serious thinkers, however widely they differ, are 
agreed in this,— that there is a Great Destiny, 
towards which the race of man is making its way. 
Each may impart to that destiny, the peculiar form 
and hue of his own creed. But it is the settled con- 
viction of all, that there is a luminous point towards 
which human things are converging, and that a day 
of light, of moral splendour, of liberty and of exalted 
blessedness, shall encompass our globe. There is 
and there must ever have been a settled plan in the 
moral, as in the material world. But nothing can 
be more manifest, than that the plan is not human. 
There has been no compact, no concert among men, 
and there is no such thing now, for carrying out this 
holy design. It is true that men have been the act- 
ing parties ; so far as has been apparent to the eye, 



HUMAN AND DIVINE AGENCY. 87 

they liave been tlie only acting parties. But the 
plan has been Heaven's alone; the great laws of the 
moral world, also, which have reigned in all its move 
ments have been from above, and the entire machi- 
nery, by which whatever success is yet witnessed has 
been gained and by which perfect ultimate success 
shall be achieved, is Divine. 

The reality of the continued and universal Divine 
Working in the Spiritual World is all which we 
now seek to establish. Its mode is quite another 
question, and one which opens up all those profound 
and distressing difl&culties which hereafter will ap- 
peal to us for solution. Men are the visible agents 
and instruments of moral providence, the only 
visible agents and instruments of moral providence. 
But the Infinite Being is the real, though unseen, 
Actor, and by means of human instrumentality He 
is carrying out His Mighty Plan. How are Divine 
and Human Working connected ? Where does the 
one terminate and the other begin? How much, in 
the movements of the Spiritual World, is to be 
attributed to God, and how much to man ? 

This only, with our present means of judging, 
we are entitled to assert, — there is too much of 
disorder, and too much of evil,, to allow the belief, 
that Divine Will and Power are alone at work in 



88 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

the activities of mind, as we know they are in tlie 
activities of matter. On tlie other hand, there is 
too evident a plan in human affairs, and too evident 
a sovereignty of holy and mighty laws, for us to 
imagine that Man alone is the Worker in this sacred 
region. To reconcile the conflicting principles and 
phenomena of the moral world, the existence of evil 
with Divine working, and a determined plan with 
voluntary activity in man, is the overwhelming 
labour, from which it is impossible not to recoil, but 
which we are impelled to attempt. 



PAET THIED. 

THE ATTRIBUTES OF THE INFINITE 

NATURE HARMONIOUS W^ITH THE 

FACTS OF THE UNIVERSE, 



IN TWO CHAPTEES. - 

Chapter I. Physical and Moral Evil in the Light op 

Eeason. 
Chapter II. Physical and Moral Evil in the brighter 

Light op Kevelation. 



[89] 



1 



STRETCH OF REASON. 

Philosophy and ITieology alike teach us, tliat be- 
yond the utmost stretcb. of Eeason there lies the 
illimitable, the unknowable. In the Unity of all 
truth, even that which we know, and know best, 
must spread itself, in many of its relations, into this 
unapproachable region, and be there lost to our 
thought. Human powers of comprehension do not 
define the extent, and do not exhaust the fulness of 
spiritual truth. The just eJBfect of this persuasion is 
not to repress investigation, but, in a conviction of 
the necessary limitation of our faculties, to supply a 
new element, which, in concert with other principles, 
shall act as a guiding influence in all our researches, 
and especially in all our conclusions. 

It is impossible, from the very nature of the sub- 
ject, to exhibit the perfect harmony, on all sides ^ of 
the phenomena of Providence, with the Moral Na- 
ture of the Supreme. It is of "the Infinite" we 
presume to judge, his acting, his reasons, his aims. 
And must these, can these be all fathomable, 
measurable, explicable by us? Perhaps Providence 
on our earth connects itself with Providence in other 
regions of the Universe ; perhaps Divine spiritual 



92 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

agency extends over a sphere inconceivably vast, 
embracing tlie worlds and peoples of immensity ; 
perbaps tbe plan of Providence tbrougbont is one, 
our eartb forming an inconsiderable part in tbe 
Migbty Wbole. Looking, as we do, only on a part, 
wbicb may connect itself, in ten thousand ways, witb 
tbat wbicb is beyond our vision, and may only tbere 
receive its bigbest interpretation, sball we expect, in 
our fragment^ notbing but wbat is comprebensible, 
barmonious, luminous. Were tbere no scene of 
God's spiritual working but our eartb and its suc- 
cessive populations, bow complicated, bow intricate, 
bow vast, is even tbis ! How little even of tbis, is 
tbe most capacious buman mind capable of looking 
upon! A scbeme wbicb embraces tbe entire dura- 
tion of tbe world, tbe countless successive genera- 
tions of men, all tbeir interests, intellectual, moral, 
social, temporal, and immortal, all tbe relations of 
all . events, and all tbeir influences and all tbeir 
resjdts ; a scbeme, reposing in tbe Infinite Soul, of 
wbose motives, wbose grounds, and wbose end, tbat 
Soul alone is cognisant, — is this a tbing for man to 
understand, to interpret? Were it, indeed, on all 
sides interpretable by us, sbould we not on tbis very 
account be forced to conclude tbat it could not be 
divine? From contradictions, clear and undeniable 



HUMAN CONCEPTIOlSrS EVER LIMITED. 93 

contradictions to immutable principles, were such 
found, we should be entitled, even compelled to 
recoil. But, if there be only incomprehensibilities, 
it is impossible in such a region that they should be 
altogether wanting. 

Systems of Theology, so called, have too often and 
always with most pernicious effect, professed to 
exhibit the Plan of Spiritual Providence (to use their 
very words) "as it existed in the Divine MindP A 
plan of the intentions of God, a Whole excogitated by 
man, descending to the ground of things and em- 
bracing the entire range of Divine designs — anything 
professing to be in this sense a connected Whole, 
which, whatever difficulties and darknesses it con- 
fesses, yet claims to be a systematised, and, in mea- 
sure, completed body of truth on this subject, we 
must maintain carries within it its own confutation 
and condemnation. Parts of the extended circle, the 
Infinite Unity, we may rationally hope to distin- 
guish. From many sides a light may fall on us 
which shall reveal to our immovable conviction the 
moral glory and grandeur of the Supreme, and shall 
perfectly satisfy us that all which appears to be 
irreconcilable is irreconcilable, not in itself, but only 
in consequence of our limited power. But the 
Infinite Circle must for ever exist to us, only in 



94 THE MYSTEEY, ETC. 

broken parts, never in its totality and unity ; and 
amidst all the liglit wliicli springs from on Mgli to 
the watchfal and earnest soul, there must remain 
vast darkness, which we can never penetrate, never 
illuminate, vast chasms across which no pathway for 
us can be projected. That there is a Perfect, a 
Glorious Whole, we shall believe, but as a Perfect 
Whole it must for ever transcend the range of our 
faculties. 

The sphere of Spiritual Providence, which alone 
is open in any degree to the investigation of our 
Eeason, is this earth. We now turn to this sphere 
with profound awe, with a settled conviction, also, 
of the necessary limitation of human capacity, but 
with an earnest and intense desire to comprehend 
and to vindicate the ways of God to man. 

Evil is the all-embracing, all-defying mystery of 
this world. Whether as physical or as moral, it 
presents a difficulty, in connection with the Govern- 
ing Presence of a Wise, a Holy, and a Good Being, 
which calls imperiously for solution. Wherefore was 
Evil first allowed an entrance into the world? 
Wherefore has it been suffered to perpetuate itself 
and spread its empire over so vast a portion of our 
earthly relations? Are not the introduction, the 
perpetuation, and the extension of Evil in any form 



PHYSICAL EVIL. 95 

irreconcilable with, the essential principles of the 
Divine Character ? Do not these facts limit either 
the Eectitude, or the Goodness, or the Wisdom, or 
the Power of God ? 

Physical Evil — suffering — is a manifest imper- 
fection; often we are tempted to think it a direct 
injustice. The amount of it, perhaps, is exaggerated 
by persons of peculiar temperament, — ^indeed, by all 
in certain states of mind, and there are many import- 
ant deductions jfrom its amount which in speculating 
on this subject we often fail to make. It is perfectly 
certain, that an immense portion of suffering in our 
world is the direct effect of the folly or the wicked- 
ness of the sufferers themselves, and can create no 
insurmountable difficulty to any reflecting mind. It 
admits of no question, besides, that there is a vast 
amount of actual enjoyment under the existing con- 
dition of things, and that the evil, such as it is, is 
attended with important alleviations. Almost every 
being, primitively, seems to be made and fitted for 
enjoyment. The organs, the materials, and the 
means of physical happiness are abundant. Perhaps 
there are no earthly lives in which, except owing to 
manifest fault in themselves, the amount of enjoy- 
ment does not outweigh the amount of suffering. 
And then the rich uses of physical evil are to be 



96 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

taken into account. Character is strengthened and 
perfected by suffering. It presents new occasions, 
even new motives, for exercising and invigorating 
virtuous principles. It draws forth a higher kind of 
excellence than had otherwise been possible, and, in 
fact, gives birth to an entire class of virtues, which, 
without its existence, could not have been known. 

But when Philosophers and Divines have expa- 
tiated wisely and piously on the advantages of the 
existing constitution of the world, the real difficulty 
is felt as acutely as ever ; and for its solution their 
efforts, valuable in other respects, are worse than 
useless ; they are almost an outrage to right reason 
and to right feeling. The fearful inequalities of 
rank, of condition, and of circumstances among men 
are before us. How shall they be explained ? A 
susceptible and honest mind turns only with deep 
distress to the fact, that multitudes toil and hurry 
themselves to a premature grave only to gain daily 
bread, and that multitudes more constantly suffer the 
most cruel privations, and often have not wherewith 
to appease the cravings of hunger. Slavery is one 
of the terrible scourges of humanity. Multitudes of 
our race, without fault of theirs, are doomed to 
hopeless, merciless suffering, are robbed of their 
highest rights, their deepest affections are lacerated, 



PHYSICAL EVIL. 97 

their most sacred relations are denied, and a life of 
degradation and torture is closed and buried out of 
sight in a neglected grave. War is but in a few of 
its aspects less horrible than slavery. The multi- 
tudes that perish by the sword constitute only a 
small item in its enormity. Multitudes yet more 
numerous, innocent multitudes, are made widows, 
childless, fatherless. Its consequences to the physi- 
cal interests of the world, and especially its moral 
bearings and effects, are not to be estimated. Alto- 
gether, as we look abroad on the face of the earth, 
and think of blighted human lives, broken human 
hearts, and tears, and groans, and deaths, and all the 
accumulated woes that weigh down on our race, we 
ask, in anguish, is this the effect of the government 
of an Almighty and Merciful Euler ? 

Suffering is a real, a terrible enormity. In spite 
of all that has been urged as to its alleviations and 
its uses, the common reason of men proclaims aloud 
that in every view it had been incomparably better 
if it had never existed. Those, especially, who be- 
lieve in myriads of beings that have never known 
suffering, unfallen angels, cannot surely argue that 
their condition is not preferable to that of our world. 
It would be little less than insanity, to think that a 
universe exempt from suffering would have been 
5 



98 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

no better, would not have been inconceivably better, 
than tlie universe as it now exists. 

But physical evil vanishes beside the overwhelm- .. 
ing darkness of moral evil. For the solution of the 
problem of Divine Providence literally nothing is 
effected so long as this, its grand and earliest diffi- 
culty, is unassailed. It devolves on us to encounter 
this tremendous, parent-mystery of the universe. 
Perhaps, in any light which we may be able to throw 
upon the introduction and extension of moral evil, 
all the difficulties connected with physical evil may 
find their most satisfactory solution. 

Two paths are open to us ; the one to investigate 
the existence of Physical and Moral Evil under the 
Divine Government of the World, by the aid of 
Eeason ; and the other, to conduct the investigation 
in the brighter light of Eevelation. 



'I 



CHAPTER I. 
PHYSICAL a:nd moral evil in the 

LIQHT OF REASON. 



IK FIVE SECTIONS. 

Section I. Eesponsibility. 

Section II, Power, the Necessary Condition of Respon- 
sibility. 

Section HI. Moral Evil, the Voluntary Abuse op Moral 
Power i 

Section IV. The Creator infinitely opposed to Moral 

Evil. 
Section V. Physical Evil, the Necessary Effect, but 

ALSO THE Divine Corrective, of Moral Evil. 



SECTION I. 

RESPONSIBILITY. 

Grounded in the Fact of Conscience — ^Moeal Intuitions 
— Higher Significance — Doctrine of The Infinite — 
Eternal Guardian of Truth and Eight — ^Immortality — 
Original Intuition — Account hereafter — Man must meet 
ms God. 



Doi] 



DUALISM OF MAN. 

Human* nature is essentially dualistic. There is a 
grand and just sense in which man is accountable to 
himself, and in the degree in which he recognises 
this inner self- tribunal is he able to appreciate a 
more dread accountableness. 

Is there such a power as Conscience in the human 
soul ; or is Man either wholly or in great part the 
creature of circumstances? Are there to him virtue 
and vice ; or are both alike independent of him, the 
result of his physical organisation and of his outward 
conditions, — the first involving no merit, and the 
second no crime ? These are the questions which 
divide the modern secularists, materialists, and ne- 
cessitarians, from the upholders of human liberty and 
responsibility. There are, in reality, two great 
problems which lie at the foundation of the theory 
of morals : first, "What is the distinction between 
right and wrong? second. By what power of our 
inward nature do we detect this distinction, supposing 
it to exist ? The first regards the nature of Virtue, 
the second touches the existence of a Moral Sense 
and of our Moral Sentiments. "With the second of 
these great problems we have at present to do. 

As a matter of fact, our minds make the distinction 

[102] 



HUMAN CONSCIENCE. 103 

between right and wrong. Nobody doubts, nobody 
can doubt it. True or false, whatever it may in- 
volve, we do certainly make it : this^ at least, is the 
distinct testimony of consciousness. When it is sug- 
gested that by such a distinction we mean only to 
convey that one sort of feeling or acting is wise and 
another foolish, one sort useful and another hurtful, 
the same witness which t-estifies. to the fact testifies 
also that this is not its just interpretation. What- 
ever that be within us which distinguishes right 
from wrong, the distinction which it makes is not 
expressed by wisdom and folly, advantage and dis- 
advantage. On the one hand, we are conscious of a 
kind of approbation which is not awarded to wisdom, 
and, on the other hand, of a kind of disapprobation 
which is not awarded to folly. There is a form of 
excellence, which the words wisdom and utility do 
not express ; we call it moral excellence, virtue : and 
there is a form of evil which the words folly and 
injury do not express; we call it moral evil, vice. 
The question is, by what power of our minds do we 
institute this class of judgments, and to what region 
of our spiritual nature does this power belong? 

If in this case it were a mere calculation which we 
conducted, and if the moral distinctions drawn by us 
were altogether the result of investigation and of 



104 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

reasoning, a balancing of qualities and quantities, we 
should have no difficulty in bringing this within the 
ordinary function of the understanding. But the 
usual processes of the understanding are found not 
to be applicable here, at least not in multitudes of 
casefe, and the understanding is found not to be, at 
all events, the first judge in this matter. The dis- 
tinction between right and wrong is not arrived at 
by mental research, is not reasoned out, and weighed, 
and balanced by the judgment. In the vast majority 
of cases, this distinction is not a discovery which we 
reach, but rather a perception of which we are con- 
scious — an immediate perception. It can be likened 
to nothing so much, as to the action of the sense- 
organs. The power by which it is effected may be 
compared to an inward sense, just as the eye and the 
ear are outward senses. There is a faculty in the 
mind, of instantly recognising the moral in act or in 
disposition, the rightness or wrongness of a thing, in 
the same way as the organ of vision immediately 
perceives the effect of light and shade, and the organ 
of hearing immediately perceives the vibrations of 
the atmosphere. There is a moral nature in man as 
there is a sensational and an intellectual nature. 
There is a power whose sphere is the moral, and that 
power is first of all distinctively perceptive ; its pro- 



HUMAN co:N'sciE:^rcE. 105 

vince is to apprehend the moral, to perceive rightness 
and wrongness, and the perception, speaking gene- 
rally, is immediate, like that by the sense-organs : it 
is intuitive, it is universal. 

Into the numerous and intricate controversies that 
have arisen on the question of the originality and the 
intuitional character of Human Conscience, we dare 
not enter. We may be permitted, however, to utter 
the conviction, that the beautiful analysis of psycho- 
logical facts in this region, by Sir James Mackintosh,^ 
whose ethical speculations are so admirable as to 
create the deepest regret that they had not been 
more extended, fails to sustain his theory of a com- 
posite rather than a simple nature of the Moral 
Sense. The reasonings of Butler, and still more of 
Hutcheson, not to name later accomplished ethical 
writers, uphold the conclusion, that Conscience, the 
power which distinguishes right from wrong, is a 
separate and original faculty of the Human Soul. 
But the difficulties which stand in the way of this 
theory are far from being inconsiderable. The fact, 
for example, that the most opposite ethical notions 
apparently, are found in different ages and among 



* Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy. Edin- 
burgh : 1837. 

5^ 



106 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

different tribes, is hard to be reconciled. It would 
seem, tliat that whicli is virtue in one age is vice in 
another, — that that which is condemned in one 
country is honoured in another. There can be no 
common Moral Faculty, it is said, in human nature, 
when the moral perceptions and judgments of men 
are thus found to be as opposite and variable as can 
be conceived. A valid criterion of virtue can never 
be furnished by that which is so mutable and even so 
contradictory. 

The imperfections and perversions of conscience 
are freely admitted, although not to the extent 
which, from love of theory, is often alleged ; but the 
conclusion which is foimded upon them is emphati- 
cally denied. The human eye, through various 
causes, may become either strengthened in its power 
of vision, or weakened, and even permanently im- 
paired, and no longer capable of distinguishing accu- 
rately the effect of light and shade. But we do not 
therefore deny, that to the human race generally 
this organ is a valid and trustworthy witness of the 
presence and the qualities of external objects. Me- 
mory is a very variable faculty of the mind. It 
may, on the one hand, be incalculably strengthened, 
and it may, on the other hand, become exceedingly 
treacherous and unretentive. But we do not there- 



HUMAN CONSCIENCE. 107 

lore deny, that to tlie human race generally this 
power recals the past and is a valid witness of its 
reality. Even the faculty of knowing and judging 
is susceptible of the greatest deterioration. It may 
be weakened (as it may also be strengthened), it 
may be perverted, corru.pted, and all but lost. In 
certain localities, and in certain conditions, men are 
scarcely, if at all, in this respect, elevated above the 
irrational tribes. But we do not therefore deny 
that rationality is an attribute, an original and uni- 
versal attribute, of human nature. 

Conscience is improvable and impairable. On the 
one hand, it may be instructed and educated, and 
with increasing cultivation may become increasingly 
capable and trustworthy as a guide. On the other 
hand, it may be awfully darkened and corrupted, 
may be irregular in prompting, or may almost cease 
to prompt, to good, and to deter from evil. But we 
cannot therefore deny that it is a universal and 
original endowment, a precious and imperishable 
part of our nature, which takes cognizance of a class 
of qualities which the ordinary function of the 
understanding does not embrace, and which distin- 
guishes intuitively between the morally good and 
the morally evil. 

Eeferring to the errors and imperfections of 



108 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

the conscience, Dr. Chalmers^ says, "It is not tliat 
Justice, Humanity, and Gratitude are not the ca- 
nonised virtues of every region, or that falsehood, 
cruelty, and fraud would not, in their abstract and 
unassociated nakedness, be viewed as the objects of 
moral antipathy and rebuke. It is, that in one and 
the same material action, when looked to in all the 
lights of which, whether in reality or by the power 
of imagination, it is susceptible, various, nay, oppo- 
site moral characteristics may be blended ; and that 
while one people look to the good only without the 
evU, another may look to the evil only without the 
good. And thus the identical acts which, in one 
nation, are the subjects of a most reverent and re- 
ligious observance, may in another be regarded with 
a shuddering sense of abomination and horror. And 
this, not because of any difference in what may be 
termed the moral categories of the two people, nor 
because, if moral principles in their unmixed gene- 
rality were offered to the contemplation of either, 
either would call evil good or good evil. When 
theft was pubHcly honoured and rewarded in Sparta, 
it was not because theft in itself was reckoned a 
good thing, but because patriotism and dexterity, 

* Moral and Intell. Constitution of Man, vol. i. pp. 89 — ^91. 



MORAL INTUITIOlSrS. 109 

and those services by wliicli the interests of pa- 
triotism might be supported, were reckoned to be 
good things. When the natives of Hindostan as- 
semble with delight around the agonies of a human 
sacrifice, it is not because they hold it good to 
rejoice in a spectacle of pain, but because they hold 
it good to rejoice in a spectacle of heroic devotion 
to the memory of the dead. When parents are ex- 
posed or children are destroyed, it is not because it 
is deemed to be right that there should be the 
infliction of misery for its own sake, but because it 
is deemed to be right that the wretchedness of old 
age should be curtailed, or that the world should be 
saved from the miseries of an overcrowded species. 
In a word, in the very worst of these anomalies, 
some form of good may be detected, which has led 
to their establishment ; and still, some universal and 
undoubted principle of morality, however perverted 
or misapplied, can be alleged in vindication of them. 
A people may be deluded by their ignorance, or 
misguided by their superstition, or not only hurried 
into wrong deeds, but even fostered into wrong sen- 
timents, under the influences of that cupidity or 
revenge which are so perpetually operating in the 
warfare of savage or demi-savage nations. Yet, in 
spite of all the topical moralities to which these have 



110 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

given birth, there is an unquestioned and Tiniyersal 
morality notwithstanding. And in every case where 
the moral sense is unfettered by these associations, 
and the judgment is uncramped; either by the par- 
tialities of interest or by the inveteracy of national 
customs, which habit and antiquity have rendered 
sacred, .... Conscience is found to speak the same 
language ; nor, to the remotest ends of the world, is 
there a country or an island where the same uniform 
and consistent voice is not heard from her." 

There is a sense of right and wrong, an inborn 
sense of right and wrong, in the human soul. It 
may be called a power of moral judgment, if we 
will, but the first acts of this power, its judgments, 
at least in innumerable instances, are not formed, 
as other judgments are, by examining and weighing 
evidence. They are instinctive and intuitive. With 
greater exactness, they may be called perceptions 
rather than judgments, — immediate perceptions of 
Tightness or wrongness, in action or in sentiment. 

The human conscience performs another and a 
still higher office ; with authority, not to be resisted 
with impunity, it gives forth its commands on the 
one hand, its prohibitions on the other hand. This 
is a psychological fact, to be determined by an 
appeal to consciousness, and which is satisfactorily 



MOEAL INTUITIONS. iii 

and indispiTtably set at rest by this appeal. The 
question is not, whether the commands and the pro- 
hibitions of our moral nature be in themselves right 
or wrongj whether they be heeded or unheeded, or 
to what extent they are heeded, by those to whom 
they are addressed. But they are given forth. 
That is certain, and it is enough. There is a power 
in the human soul which authoritatively pronounces 
'Hhe ought and the ought not," what Kant distin- 
guishes as ^Hhe categorical imperative," in one word, 
*^duty." Conscience maybe variously developed, 
and may be affected by individual, local, and social 
circumstances ; but every human being is aware 
of a voice within, which is essentially a voice of 
command. Unlike the other faculties of our nature, 
this does not submit its materials to be dealt with as 
the understanding may determine It claims within 
its own sphere a sovereign authority over all the 
other principles and powers, a supreme and solitary 
authority. Its mandates are not permitted to be 
questioned, although without permission they often 
are questioned, and even daringly transgressed. 
But conscience allows^ in no direction, a right of 
appeal. Its authority needs no confirmation, and 
admits no reference beyond itself. *^ This is right, 



112 THE MYSTERY, ETC, 



that is wrong," ^^yon ouglit," *'you onglit not," is 
the stern language of this inward lawgiver. 

The verdict of conscience is its own ground : 
there is nothing deeper, nothing beyond : it asserts 
itself not only as a reigning, but as an ultimate au- 
thority ; its utterances are their own evidence and 
except themselves, they ask, they offer no evidence; 
there is none. *' This is right, that is wrong," we 
perceive it, we feel it, conscience assures us of it. 
" This is morally binding," conscience commands 
it, it is the authoritative voice of our nature ; we 
cannot go farther or higher within the limits of our 
personal sphere. 

Kesponsibility thus far is a distinctly recognised 
fact in human consciousness. If to none else, man 
is accountable to himself, and does, in point of 
fact, take account of himself, and by the very consti- 
tution of his spiritual nature condemns or approves 
himself. It is no fiction, no creation of supersti- 
tion, no arbitrary restraint, no offspring of ground- 
less fear, but one of the universal, distinctive, 
and deep realities of his moral being, of which he 
can no more divest himself than he can throw off 
his entire nature. Even on this earliest ground it 
is clear, that Man is essentially a responsible being. 
He is under law, at least to himself, and at least by 



DOCTRINE OF THE INFINITE. 113 

himself is the proper object of praise or blame, re- 
ward or punishment. There is such a thing as 
Duty, Obligation, to him, and for this reason, also, 
there is such a thing as crime, guilt, to him. 

But the sense of responsibility is never dissociated, 
infact^ from the idea of a being higher than man him- 
sel, the idea of very God. Conscience is the voice 
of ^^ the Infinite " IN Man. When we dispassionately 
analyse our mental states, it is found, on the clear 
testimony of consciousness, that the secret of the 
power of conscience lies in the deep conviction that 
it stands related to a higher authority, out of itself 
altogether. There is a sense of God in the human 
soul, an original intuition that '''the Infinite^'^ is, that 
over us and over all there is a Great, an Incompre- 
hensible, but a real Power, and Conscience gives a 
peculiar significance to this intuition. The Infinite 
becomes to it the centre and dwelling of moral excel- 
lence, the source whence issues the Eternal and 
Immutable Law of Eight, the guardian and defender 
of all that is holy, and just, and true, and the avenger 
of all that is evil. 

It is not merely that the creature must be account- 
able to the Creator. This, indeed, is a first and 
self-evident principle. No right can be higher or 
more inalienable, than that which is based in the fact 



114 ' THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

of Creation. If our very being, witli all its powers, 
be the product of tlie Almighty Will, nothing can 
be plainer than that the first, the all-embracing, the 
unchangeable obligation under which we lie is to Him. 
So soon, therefore, as it is felt that conscience is the 
voice of God, its authority is then based on the 
earliest and deepest of all our intuitions — that which 
lies at the foundation of our entire nature — ^the in- 
tuition of God. 

But beyond this still, the utterances of the moral 
sense do of themselves touch what is everlasting and 
unchangeable. The will of our Maker, we have seen, 
simply as such, is to us paramount. But we come 
to learn that that which is the will of our Maker is 
also in itself eternally right, and is even independent 
of all other authority, is indeed uncreated, and could 
not be changed even by the Supreme. It is the 
Eternal laws of the great empire of Truth and 
Eight and all Moral Good, which are promulgated 
by the moral faculty. These laws are the same in 
every part of the Universe, and throughout all ages, 
the same to all intelligences, the same to created 
beings, and in the Divine Mind, where they have 
dwelt and shall dwell for ever* Conscience, there- 
fore, is that sacred power in the mental constitution 
which sets before us principles that in themselves 



IMMORTALITY. 115 

know no beginning, no end, no change. But it 
proclaims, at the same time, that the Most High is 
the chosen protector of these principles. The laws 
of right and wrong,- and the kingdom to which they 
belong, are thus not simply suggestions of conscience, 
conceptions of the mind, however great be the force 
and sanctity which even this involves: they are 
profound realities in themselves, and, what is still 
more, there is a Mighty Guardian over them, who 
will not suffer them to be outraged with impunity. 
To do violence to them is to encounter him. 

This is the higher meaning of the sense of respon- 
sibility ; and it is thus that God's vicegerent over- 
awes the hardiest and the most reckless. We have 
to answer not to it only, that is to ourselves, but to 
the Almighty. Eectitude, and Purity, and Truth, 
and Love have their home in the Infinite Nature. 
They are its Eternal possessions ; the Uncreated is 
the impersonation of these immutable qualities, is 
identified with them, and must uphold and protect 
them. The sense of responsibility is none else than 
the sense of the Infinite, the Divine. Vague, ill- 
defined, and even atrociously wrong the ideas formed 
respecting the Divine may be, but the secret con- 
viction of the human soul abides. There is an un- 
seen, a Mighty Being, whose eye is upon the life, 



116 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

the heart, and who takes account of right and wrong, 
and it is, and mnst be, a fearful thing to fall into his 
hands. 

' The convictions and fears of men assume another 
form still, and one yet more definite and extended. 
The idea of the Unseen Guardian of the great 
interests of morality, the Defender of good and the 
Avenger of evil, connects itself with the notion of 
existence beyond the limits of the present life. 
These three conceptions. Conscience, "the Infinite," 
and Immortahty, mutually involve one another. 
That fear of which all are sensible when violence 
is done to the authority of conscience is unintel- 
ligible, unless there be a Being out of ourselves to 
whom we are answerable ; and this again, in itself, 
is hardly less unintelligible, except we suppose the 
latent notion that the power of this Being is capable 
of reaching us beyond the present world. Even in 
the present world, there are not wanting instances of 
retributive judgment sufficient to arouse our fears. 
But these are few, on the whole, and rare, and they 
suggest far more than they directly express. They 
strike the mind, not as terminating acts, but rather 
as anticipative and incipient. They are incomplete 
in themselves, and need something more to bring 
out their significance. They are rather examples of 



OEIGINAL mTUITIOlSr. 117 

what shall be, than conclusive and comprehensive 
utterances of what is, foretokens of the kind of 
reckoning which, in a few instances, the Almighty 
takes on earth, but which may be taken hereafter 
without abatement. The fears of the stricken con- 
science are not of evil which shall come down upon 
us here, but of evU which must overtake us here- 
after. 

The last, the strongest, the only satisfactory evi- 
dence of Immortality is to be found in the intuitions 
of the soul itself. Its nature, indeed, is mysterious. 
Its faculties are marvellous, its capacities of self- 
development, and self-elevation, and of exterior pro- 
duction, almost creation, seem illimitable. It is 
quite reasonable to conceive that we may have even 
here a prophecy, all but a distinct promise, of the 
endless destiny for which it is created. It seems an 
impeachment of the wisdom of the Creator, to think 
that he should originate such capabilities, exhibit 
such indications, almost express such predictions, 
certainly inspire such hopes, in the case of a being, 
who, after a short and withal meaningless course, 
was destined to vanish into nonentity. It is possi- 
ble, by drawing forth all the significant facts in the 
soul's history, to heighten exceedingly the pre- 
sumption, which is thus afforded in favor of its 



118 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

immortality. And it is grateful to know, ttat an 
enlightened faith may in this way be confirmed and 
deepened. But this evidence is only presumptive, 
however high the presumption may rise ; and ihepos- 
sihility^ in spite of all, is not to be concealed, that it 
may he the will of the Creator, on grounds which we 
cannot understand, that the earthly course of man 
should lead but to annihilation. 

Our last and best defence against this fear is a 
voice from within, a clear and deep enunciation of 
our own nature. The soul carries in itself a sense of 
its immortal destiny. This is found not to be peculiar 
to any age, or to any form of cultivation. It is not 
national, not educational, not even Christian, but 
strictly universal. So far as such a point can be 
investigated, it is found to be strictly universal, and 
even where it has been discredited, it has first been 
suppressed. Men must have first unlearnt it, before 
they argue against its validity. It is not a longing 
only, after immortality — not of hope, only, but much 
more ; it is a distinct intimation from within. In 
certain conditions of our nature, the intimation may 
be feeble, even inaudible; it may be neglected, 
even resisted; but never, let humanity be sunk ever 
so low, is it so entirely suppressed that it cannot be 
made audible. He who fashioned the soul has so 



MAN MUST MEET HIS GOD. 119 

constituted it, that universally it i^ predisposed to form 
the idea of its own immortal existence. He must 
have implanted this predisposition, and must have 
furnished in the original structure the materials out 
of which this idea was to be formed. The intuitions 
of the soul are the most indubitable of all verities. 
If the Creator be wise, if he can have no intention 
to deceive, if he be infinitely true and infinitely 
kind, these intuitions may be relied upon as His very 
voice, and in the most intelligible and direct form, in 
which he can speak to us. The Maker has with his 
own signet, stamped immortality on his own work- 
manship — the soul of man. He has destined it, and 
made it to know that he has destined it, to live for 
ever. 

Conscience points forward to a life to come. 
Accountableness does not cease when the earthly life 
has terminated, it must extend over the whole being 
of the soul, here and hereafter. The wildest notions 
of the life to come may float before the mind; but this 
at least is felt to be certain, — we shall not be out of 
the reach of our Maker, when the grave hides all 
that was visible of our personality from the eye of 
the world. We may be even more near to him, 
more mysteriously under his eye and in his hand. 
The account betwixt Him and us, unsettled on 



120 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

eartli, will still be open. "We are under a law wbicli 
we liave violated, ourselves being judges, and the 
Almighty is the guardian of that law. All the fit- 
nesses of things would be contravened, and our essen- 
tial constitution would be stultified, if our doings and 
our character were for ever undetermined, unjudged. 
The doctrine of responsibility has its ground in the 
fact of conscience, it is further unfolded in the sense 
of The Infinite, and it at last finds its highest signi- 
ficance in the intuition of immortality. Man knows 
and feels that he is accountable to a Supreme Autho- 
rity for what he is and for what he does. The sense 
of duty, of moral obligation, is within him, and he 
cannot divest himself of it. He ravbst answer to his 
Maker: it is right, it is fitting, it Ls inevitable, it 
belongs to his being, that he should be called to 
answer to the Impartial Judge of right and wrong, 
the Mighty Guardian of the eternal and immutable 
laws of the Moral Universe. 






SECTION II. 

POWER THE NECESSARY CONDITION 
OF RESPONSIBILITY. 

Power, Feeedom, Harmony of "Uncreated" — Certainty 
AND Constancy not Necessity, but Liberty — !Man, his 
Structure : I. Conscious Power of Choice — Physiologi- 
cal, Philosophical, Theological Difficulties — Material 
and Moral Causation — Man's Absolute Dependence — 
Will, Secondary yet Real Independence — Cause op 
Choice not Without but Within — " Autonomy' ' of Will — 
Kant — Coleridge — Dr. Reid — Sir W. Hamilton — Incon- 

CEIVABLENESS OF MoRAL LiBERTY CoUSINS WiLL, ITS OWN 

Law — Self-determining Power of Will, Misnomer. — " Last 
Dictate of Understanding" — "Greatest Apparent Good" 
— No Law, out of itself, to Will — Fatalism. II. Ability 
TO exercise Power of Choice — Maniac — Lower Animals — 
Voluntary Loss of Moral Power, Crime — Force of Habit 
Sensualism — Irresponsible Inability — Moral Malforma- 
tion — Righteous Condition and Criterion. 



[121] 



PERFECTION OF BEING. 

"The Uncreated" must be Absolute Perfection, 
The Perfection of Being — Physical, Intellectual, 
Moral — The Perfection of Moral Being in all its 
aspects. His nature, righteous, benevolent, truthful, 
pure, is an infinite harmony. Eeason, Conscience, 
Emotion, and Volition, in Him, are eternally at one, 
not in consequence of foreign necessity, but owing 
to Internal immovable choice. Imagine — if it be 
lawful, on so sacred a subject, to hazard such a 
thing — but only for the sake of illuminating a holy 
and settled truth — imagine a momentary disturb- 
ance of the Uncreated Mind, emotion, affection, in- 
clination, discordant with Eternal Eeason or Eternal 
Conscience; that moment would record a loss of 
Power, of Freedom, in The Supreme. A nature dis- 
organised, at variance with itself, is enfeebled in the 
very fact. It is enslaved for the time, unconcen- 
trated, paralysed by an evil within, instead of being 
harmoniously bestowed on free, unimpaired, and un- 
opposed self-development. Only he, who is at one 
with himself, is strong, compact, prepared for decisive 
and truthful manifestation. 

Harmony is Strength. The Harmony of the 
Divine Nature is eternally self-derived and self- 

[122] 



POTTER, ETC., OF ** UNCREATED." 123 

sustained; there is no cause of it, except GocVs in- 
vincible moral power, liis absolute freedom, the 
spontaneous force of his own Being. The moral 
and the intellectual in Him give forth their pre- 
sentations; these are infinitely pleasing to Him, 
and all the actings of the Divine Soul are in infi- 
nite concord with them ; but if the cause of this be 
demanded, there is no cause except Internal choice. 
Clearly, this issue is what it ought to be, is alto- 
gether right, and alone right; but that which is 
right and which ought to be, The Most High chooses 
shall be. It is the Perfection of his Being that he 
does so, and that he ca??, because he will do nothing 
else. 

Physical possibility of another course than that 
which he actually determines upon, mere power for 
this purpose, there is to the Supreme, most mani- 
festly ; but moral power, free choice in Him, is the 
governor and the guide of physical power. Inert, 
dormant potentiality in itself is nothing, does no- 
thing; it must be put into action by will. The 
Great Being chooses, always chooses, to exert his 
Almightiness in one direction and no other. If he 
does not J if he iiever does, if, as we speak, he never 
can act otherwise, it is simply and only because he 
vill not, it is owing not to a defect but to a perfection ; 



124 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

namely, that wliat He determines sliall be is always 
wliat ought to be, and nothing else : He commands, 
instead of being commanded, by bis own illimitable 
resources. It is not because lie is constrained, but 
because lie cannot be constrained, and ever deter- 
mines only as lie pleases to determine. 

To say, therefore, that the Supreme cannot hut 
choose what is wise, and right, and good, is simply 
to express his Infinite Moral Power and Freedom ; 
it is to say, that his choice cannot be forced into 
discordance with Conscience and Eeason. Only by 
force, could He act inconsistently with these powers 
of his Being. A deviation from the invariable, im- 
mutable course of his procedure would be a proof, 
not of freedom, but of compulsion. Such a devia- 
tion, therefore, is impossible, not because he is ne- 
cessitated, but because he cannot he necessitated. 
Freely, spontaneously, unconstrained from without 
and from within, he chooses only what is wise and 
right and good. To imagine that the Supreme Will 
is nevertheless necessitated, is mere vexatious im- 
becility: necessity and self-determined choice are 
the most perfect opposites : we can put into words 
no higher announcement of perfect liberty, than 
when we say that a being absolutely governs his 
own choice. 



CERTAINTY AND CONSTANCY, NOT NECESSITY. 125 

Constancy and certainty of action are thus no 
proof of necessity in tlie sense of compulsion, but 
may be, and, in the case of the Divine Being, are^ 
the result of the most perfect moral liberty. The 
cause of the constancy and certainty, the governing 
power which secures them, may be, and, in the case 
of the Divine Being, is, choice, free choice. 

The structure of man, essentially considered, the 
original constitution of his soul and the design and 
meaning of that constitution are not to be mistaken. 
As a responsible, rational, moral being, he is formed 
to choose and love the true and the right ; his Divine ' 
destiny is to yield to moral obligation and to the force 
of truth. Reason and Conscience are his ordained 
guides, and he knows and feels that they are so ; 
their utterances are, in themselves^ above everything 
else, they are so to the Supreme, they are so eternally 
and necessarily, and never can be otherwise ; and 
that he is thus constituted, is only to say that the 
Creator formed him in harmony with the eternal 
order of the Moral Universe. A created Mind 
whose will acts in obedience to Conscience and Rea- 
son rises to the true ideal of a perfect moral being 
— a likeness of The Uncreated. This is the highest 
freedom, it is power, it is glory. Will, in man — as, 
indeed, even in The Creator — will, in any rational 



126 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

being, is truly free and truly strong, wlien it is thus 
determined. The spiritual mechanism is then har- 
monious and the moving power is faithful to the 
design of the structure. The true and the right 
ought ever to be chosen ; they deserve to be pre- 
ferred above everything else; and when they are 
preferred, in fad^ the being then, and only then, 
realises the Divine Idea^ and reveals entire, constitu- 
tional self-command. 

The Attribute of Will, of all the endowments of 
his rational and moral nature, is that which consti- 
tutes Man an Actor, a responsible Being, and not 
an irresponsible thing. His Conscience and his 
Eeason are activities, but they are so in themselves, 
and in a great degree independently of him, and 
they put forth, and can put forth, no activity out 
of themselves. They contain and present 4ruth, but 
in this their entire of&ce is exhausted-. In thinking 
and reasoning on any subject, in perceiving and 
judging of right and wrong, the soul is active, but 
the activity — if the paradox be not too gross — is 
passive ; and, were there no other power, it would 
terminate where it began, and could lead to nothing, 
almost mean nothing. There is another power: 
that which constitutes man properly an agent, and 
not a mere instrument, is his Faculty of Will. 



MAN, HIS STEUCTURK. 127 

A double question arises here, which in both of its 
parts touches profoundly the doctrine of responsi- 
bility. First, is man possessed of liberty of choice ? 
Secondly, is he so endowed, as to be able rightly 
and wisely to use this liberty ? Moral Power is, 
first of all, simply synonymous with freedom of 
choice, but, in its truer and higher meaning, it 
includes ability to exercise this freedom, so as to 
secure the ends of the spiritual organisation. 

I. Is man, by the structure of his soul, free to 
choose for himself? That is the first point. Cer- 
tainly, there are states of mind of which he is 
conscious, which, in common language, we distin- 
guish as preferences, determinations, choices. Does 
he form them? Is he endowed with a proper faculty 
for this end ? Or are they only things happening 
within him, he knows not how? It is a question, 
a most vexed question, whether these mental states 
be merely the result of circumstances, or merely the 
necessary effect of the physical or the spiritual struc- 
ture, or wholly the acts of a power of free choice ? 
We venture to think that this great and grave pro- 
blem resolves itself into a matter of simple fact. 
It belongs to the sphere of consciousness, it relates 
to a mental phenomenon, and therefore its reality 



128 



THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



or non-reality, its nature and its ground, can be 
ascertained only by an appeal to consciousness. The 
response of universal human consciousness is the 
first, indeed the only thing to be ascertained. 

Is there within human beings a conscious power 
to choose for themselves, and, as a matter of fact, 
are they constantly, invariably, and without a single 
instance to the contrary, exercising this inward 
faculty, however their outward acting may be fet- 
tered ? The answer is as distinct as it is possible to 
conceive, and it is universal ; men are not only not 
conscious of constraint of any kind, or of certain 
mere phenomena, called choices, rising up in them, 
wholly or partially independently of their acting, 
but they are perfectly and distinctly conscious of 
entire, inward freedom, and of absolute inward 
power. 

A choice — confining the word strictly to the in- 
ward phenomenon, totally irrespective of any purpose 
reaching outwards, and therefore, affected by out- 
ward relations — ^is a man's own act, with which 
no being in the universe can interfere. It is 
wholly an internal act, which none besides himself 
and the God that made his mind can even know. 
He chooses, that is, he himself inwardly prefers — • 
knows, feels, that he prefers, one thing to another ; 



II 



CONSCIOUS POWER OF CHOICE. 129 

for himself, so far as it rests with liim, he inwardly 
selects one out of two or more paths. He does 
this : it is not a fact occurring in his mind of which 
he knows not the reason — He does it, whatever others 
wish, deem best, prefer, he for himself is perfectly 
conscious that, in his secret mind, he freely, delibe- 
rately, chooses this. The grounds of the choice are 
not the question. He may or he may not be able 
readily to explain them. They may be strong and 
valid, or futile and vicious. But he is conscious 
of being free and able to choose, and he exercises 
this freedom, this power, and chooses ; for himself, in- 
dependently of every other being, he knows and 
feels, not that a preference somehow is formed in his 
mind, but that he forms a preference, and that this is 
wholly and only his own, independent, self-originated 
deed. He may be compelled to ad^ contrary to his 
choice, but it abides the same, notwithstanding. The 
arbitrary power of others, or the force of circum- 
stances, can and does affect his acting. But no 
power out of himself can form for him or impose 
upon him, a real secret preference: that is only 
and wholly his own act. No imaginable species of 
force or fraud can in any way touch it ; if it could, 
and if there were conscious force, then there could 
be no choice ; the one would be destructive of the 
6^ 



130 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

Other. K a man be constrained from within or from 
without, this means, if it mean anything, that he 
does that which he feels is not his free wish. K he 
inwardly chooses, it means, if it mean anyihing, that 
on the one hand he is in no way conscious of the 
slightest constraint, and on the other hand, that he is 
conscious, not of passively accepting something which 
is presented to him, but of doing something, of 
freely, independently, acting. As for unconscious 
constraint, or mere passivity, mistaken for voluntary 
activity, it is a puerile fiction. The only evidence 
we can have of any material phenomenon, any inward 
fact, is that of consciousness ; beyond what we are 
conscious of, as passing in our minds, there is, there 
can be to us, no reality. To assert the reality of any 
mental condition, of which we are not conscious, is 
perfectly gratuitous ; and, in the present instance, the 
evidence of consciousness is not negative but positive. 
In preferring, a man is not only not conscious of 
constraint, but he is conscious that there is no con- 
straint, conscious, also, not of passivity but of acti- 
vity, independent, self-determined activity, and that 
all that is done is wholly his doing. 

Physiologists discourse to us very interestingly and 
instructively, of the nervous system, of the different 
kinds of nervous matter, and of the different forms 



PHYSIOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES, ETC. 131 

of nervous structure, and of tlie consequent differ- 
ent nervous susceptibility in different individuals. 
They then assure us, very honestly, without doubt, 
that what we call free-will is a mere delusion, which 
we practise on ourselves, and that the peculiar 
character and disposition of each individual, which 
entirely determine his inward preferences, his voli- 
tions, are the necessary result of his material organi- 
zation, acted upon by the outward circumstances in 
which he is placed. 

Philosophers and Divines also torture us with their 
reasonings ; suggesting apparently irreconcilable 
contradictions between facts and principles, putting 
forth the consequences on the one side and the 
other, that inevitably follow from certain admissions, 
and maintaining that, though there be no foreign 
"physical constraint^ there is a universal necessariness 
in the decisions of the will. Every choice, it is al- 
leged, is necessary, in the sense that it could not 
have been other than it is. The course of the human 
will is as determinate as the course of the stars, and 
the law which governs it is as universal as that of 
gravitation. In material changes all proceeds accord- 
ing to settled principles, which meet every case and 
which cannot be contravened ; and, in a moral se- 
quence, it is maintained, there must be the same ne- 



132 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

cessary connection between cause and effect. Tlie 
determinations of the will, thougli consciously nncom- 
pelled,^ are inevitable according to the laws of moral 
causation, and cannot, in a single instance, be other 
than they are. It amounts to this — that, at the 
moment when the human agent forms an inward 
preference, there is one thing, and only one ihing^ pos- 
sible to him; that, instead of freely making a choice, 
as we call it, he has no real power, and can only 
yield to an unconscious but resistless necessity ; and 
that what is called his choice, instead of originating 
in a power within him, the free exercise of which 
belongs to him, is the mere and necessary effect of the 
nature of things, — ^foreign to his conscious sphere 
altogether, — which, through his medium, only ex- 
hibits and announces itself Every sane man, in the 
act of willing, gives an emphatic contradiction to 
these principles. In that act, he knows and feels 
that either of two things (at the least two) is possible 
to him. If there be consciously only one possibility 
before him, he^ with all the world, will protest that 
he can then have no choice. The word implies a 
decision between at least two possibilities. The ab- 
surdity is not to be measured, of saying that, though 

"^ The verbal contradiction is not ours, but attaches to the 
theory we are combating. 



POWER, LIBERTY. 133 

apparently — and consciously to him — tliere be more 
than one, yet in reality and in the nature of things 
there is only one thing, possible to him. His entire 
consciousness contradicts the assertion, and that con- 
sciousness is a direct falsehood, if this be true. At 
lea^t two things are before him, and the cause of his 
taking the one and not the other, the sole cause he 
finds in himself; it is the perfectly free act of his 
soul. Amidst Motive Influences of a thousand kinds, 
the issue, whatever may be alleged from any quarter, 
he is perfectly assured, by the highest authority, was 
owing entirely to a voluntary exercise of his power 
of choice. So far from being necessary, inevitable, 
he is distinctly conscious that he might have made, 
and was perfectly free to make, another choice, and 
that the sole reason why he did not, was in himself 
— he determined on this. 

In spite of Physiologists, Philosophers, and 
Divines, we take refuge in the indestructible testi- 
mony of consciousness. Whatever be false, this 
must be true, and lies at the foundation of all truth ; 
there is no truth in the Universe for man, if this be 
false; we can trust to nothing evermore, if this 
deceive us. The absolute veracity of consciousness 
is a first principle of all Knowledge, all true Science, 
all sound Philosophy. Standing on this immove- 



184 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



able basis, unable perhaps to go beyond it, or to 
clear any of the difficulties which on so many sides 
are started, and in snch appalling array, we are per- 
fectly secure. The clear, loud voice of consciousness 
to every human being is, that, as he is constituted by 
God, he is entirely free to choose for himself, and 
is endowed with the appropriate faculty for this 
purpose. 

Moral causation, when viewed in the light of con- 
sciousness, as a question of simple fact, and of psy- 
chological induction, is altogether different from the 
same subject, when reasoned out, on the ground of 
what we must be permitted to call a vicious Physics, 
or Metaphysics. The material world is only and 
wholly a succession of antecedents and consequents, 
or, as we speak, of causes and effects ; there is no 
such thing as departure from the great laws of the 
universe, not an atom, nor the minutest change can 
be out of the sphere of their control ; they are all- 
comprehensive, invariable, and necessary. External 
phenomena, always and everywhere, are simply the 
effect of the operation of these laws ; there is nothing 
to overcome, nothing even to question or interfere 
with their operation. But when we pass from the 
material to the moral world, at the very threshold 
we meet with a kind of power, to which no analogy 



MORAL CAUSATION. - 135 

can be found in the region we have left behind. 
Man is constituted a voluntary being ; he is endowed 
with a faculty of choosing : instead of taking his 
place in a succession of antecedents and consequents, 
he is a free-worker, and consciously governs his 
inward self, independently of foreigTi antecedents 
and consequents. His mind, instead of being a mere 
recipient of impulses and their obedient servant, he 
feels, is placed high above them, invested with a 
regal power over them, to choose or to refuse any or 
all of them, and is thus strictly a causer, a conscious, 
voluntary beginner of change, from itself, and by a 
faculty belonging to itself, and under its control, 
though derived from its Maker. In the fact of 
voluntariness, the fact of the power of choosing, the 
Almighty has conferred on man a secondary, but 
nevertheless a real independence. 

In his being^ man is independent, not for a single 
instant. In relation to no power with which that 
being is gifted, can he ever be independent. His 
being with all its powers is the creation of the Most 
High, and never can have any ground of existence, 
except in the Most High , but there is one part of 
his nature which, when acting^ by the constitution 
the Creator has given it, has no purpose and no 
meaning, except in a secondary, yet real independ- 



136 THE MYSTEKY; ETC. 

ence. As a yolnntary being, man is necesarily, in 
the last instance, governed by himself. At any 
moment, the Almighty might withdraw as he im- 
planted this power of self-government. But the 
Faculty of Will continuing, the Almighty could 
not determine, necessitate its action in any given 
direction, just because by its very definition, by 
its essential nature, its acts must be perfectly inde- 
pendent, else it would cease to be. That man is 
free to choose, his consciousness for ever assures 
him, and this renders the necessitation of his choice, 
by any foreign cause, an impossibility, a contradic- 
tion. 

In all this, it is not involved, that The Infinite 
One has withdrawn from Humanity, and denied to 
himself the power of acting upon it, as he deems 
right. On the contrary, it is a truth altogether 
consonant to reason, that He is acting, constantly, 
mightily, mercifully acting upon the soul. Those 
gentle, illuminating, and purifying inspirations that 
flow out so richly from Nature in its countless forms 
are His^ descend from Him^ and draw, as they rise 
again, to Him, By the many voices of his Moral 
Providence, also, he makes his presence and his 
power felt, and, most of all, his Agency is put forth 
in the direct presentation of moral truth and in the 



INDEPENDENT FACULTY OF WILL. 137 

dirv3Ct influences of his own miglity Spirit. But 
amidst influences for good on the one hand, and 
influences for evil on the other hand, it belongs to 
man, independently, freely, to choose. He is en- 
dowed with the faculty of Will, and cannot, with- 
out the destruction of his nature as the Almighty 
has constituted it, be necessitated or made merely 
passive by any foreign power. Free, independent 
choice stands at the diametrically opposite extreme 
from necessitation and from mere passivity. The 
proximate cause of what a free being really chooses, 
what he in his heart prefers, must be found in him- 
self alone, not in the constraint of circumstances, 
not in the necessity of the nature of things, nor in 
necessity of any kind — though these may and do 
affect his actual, outward course — but in his Will, 
in a purely voluntary act of his own. 

There are within him moral perceptions and 
convictions, reasonings and judgments; emotions 
of various kinds, fears, hopes, affections; desires 
connected with his interests, his reputation, his 
standing, arising not only from his strictly personal 
sphere, but from his relation to others in social 
and civil life; and he has besides appetites and 
passions connected with his animal nature. But 
amidst these manifold and various influences, he is 



138 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

in his mind perfectly free to determine for himself, 
and, as a matter of fact, he voluntarily does and 
must determine for himself. If it could be shown, 
that what he inwardly prefers at any moment was 
really not owing to a free act of his, but was inevi- 
tably the result of the previous circumstances, of 
an influence either contained in them, or arising 
from their collocation or the mode of their presen- 
tation, this would be in effect to assert that he was 
no longer endowed with a faculty of Will. The 
cause of human choice (then a misnomer) would be, 
not in man, but in the nature, the arrangement, and 
the accidents of things foreign to the sphere of his 
consciousness. When it is said that every moral, 
like every physical effect, must have a cause, a suf- 
ficient cause, it is forgotten that will in man is itself, 
or rather man willing, exercising the faculty of will, 
is himself, a cause. The power, the liberty of 
choosing, or rather man exercising this power, this 
liberty, is an independent cause, apart from every- 
thing else. He may be acted upon by a thousand 
influences but he does not necessarily yield to any 
of them, else freedom, spontaneity, voluntariness are 
gone. He is thus far a productive, creative power ; 
an actor, not a mere instrument, acting as it is acted 
upon. In physical sequences we have only the 



*' AUTONOMY " OF WILL. 139 

things themselves to consider ; in moral sequences, 
there is present a causative force in addition to the 
things themselves, and wholly apart from them. 

*' The autonomy of the will " — an expressive mode 
of indicating the doctrine we have sought to estab- 
lish — ^will suggest, to those who are conversant with 
ethical speculation, -the honoured name of Kant. 
However offensive may be that mode of thought, 
characteristic of him, which deals with humanity as 
if it were the highest thing in the universe, and 
which seems to ignore its absolute and perpetual 
dependence, we cannot forget that moral liberty, 
as it has since been expounded by almost all the 
distinguished thinkers of Europe^ he was among the 
first to argue out by the severest logic and to estab- 
lish on the strong ground of reason and Conscience. 
In his ^^ Metaphysik der Sitten," to some extent also 
in his "Eeligion innerhalb der Granzen der blossen 
Yernunft," and especially in his '' Kritik der reinen 
practischen Yernunft," the autonomy (self-law) — the 
self-governing power — of the will is proved by argu- 
ments which defy assault. ^^Pure Keason" (we 
should say Conscience) ^4s essentially practical, and 
gives (to man) a universal law, which, we style the 
law of morals." ^' The self-governing power of the 
will is the sole basis of all moral laws, and of the 



140 THE MYSTJ'RY, ETC. 

duties rising out of them. An arbitrary or any 
other goyerning power could not only not establish 
moral obligation, but would be subversive of the 
principle of obligation and of the moral nature of 
the will."^ 

The views of Coleridge on this profound subject 
will be traced by many to his German master — 
perhaps justly. But they are his also, distinctly and 
deliberately nevertheless, strongly marked with the 
impress of his peculiar individuality, and connected 
besides with religious theories, to which Kant cer- 
tainly never would have subscribed. The sage of 
Konigsberg was never charged with believing in 
original and imputed sin. Coleridge devoutly and 
humbly bowed to both, but along with them he 
maintained the " Autonomy of the Will." Eeferring 
to those who hold certain extreme views, which he 

^ "Keine Yernunft ist fiir sich allein practisch und giebt 
(dem Menschen) ein allgemeines Gesetz welches wir das Sit- 

tengesetz nennen Die Autonomie des Willens ist das 

alleinige Princip aller moralischen Gesetze und der ihnen ge- 
massen Pflichten : alle Heteronomie der Willkiihr griindet 
dagegen nicht allein gar keine Yerbindliclikeit, sondern ist 
vielmehr dem Princip derselben und der Sittlichkeit des Wil- 
lens entegegen." — Kritik der prak'' Yer* Kiga 1788. See also 
Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, pp. 56, 58. Riga, 
1785. Metapliysiscbe Anfangsgriinde der Rechtslekre, 1797. 
.... Der Tugendlehre. Konigsb. 1797. 



COLERTDnE. Ill 

lias before described, he says, ^'they exaggerate the 
diseased weakness of the will into an absolute priva- 
tion of all freedom, thereby making moral respon- 
sibility, not a mystery above comprehension, but a 
direct contradiction, of which we do distinctly com- 
prehend the absurdity." .... ^^ I maintain, that a 
will conceived separately from intelligence is a non- 
entity, and a mere phantasm of abstraction, and that 
a will the state of which does in no sense originate in 
its own act, is an absolute contradiction. It mi ^^ht be 
an instinct, an impulse, a plastic power, and, if 
accompanied with consciousness, a desire, but a will 
it could not be." " This is the Essential Attribute 
of a will, and contained in the very idea, that what- 
ever determines the will acquires the power from a 
previous determination of the will itself. The will is 
ultimately self-determined, or it is no longer a will 
under the law of perfect freedom, but a nature under 
the mechanism of cause and effect." ^ But the Ger- 
man and the modern English (the school of Coleridge 
deserves to be so called^ it has already acquired a 
national extension and authority) and the older 
Scottish philosophies are at one on this subject. 
With great veneration we turn to Dr. Eeid, the 
father not only of the modern Scottish, but of all 

* Aids to Reflection, vol. i. p. 103. ; p. 104. ; p. 219. 



142 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

that is soundest in modern European pMlosopliy. 
That grave, great man, almost disowned in his own 
country, has, through the labours of Sir William 
Hamilton (himself pronounced by Cousin to be the 
first philosopher of the age), been elevated, after 
a century of comparative neglect, to the honour 
with which he had first been crowned by foreign 
nations. Eeid's essay on the Liberty of Moral 
Agents is not the least remarkable in his book.^ It 
is amazing with what immediate intuitional sagacity 
he takes hold of the profound and most vital points 
of the discussion. Whether in expounding and 
proving his own theory, or in dealing with antago- 
nists, one is struck with his surpassing simplicity, 
skill, acuteness, native masculine force, and thorough 
mastery of principles and their applications. With 
quiet, dignified, philosophic precision, he defines the 
liberty of a moral agent to be ^' his power over the 
determinations of his own will." Throughout, the 
argument is convincing, we believe unanswerable, by 
which he proves that this power belongs to man. It 
must not be concealed, however, that the illustrious 
editor of Eeid does not consent to the conclusive- 
ness of the argument for the freedom of the will, 

* Essay 4tli, Part 3. Essays on Intellectual and Active 
Powers. London, 1822. 



' DR. HEID. lis 

thougli he entirely bows to the certainty of the 
fact. With great deference we presume to suggest 
that Sir William Hamilton betrays in this instance 
the influence of that peculiar theory* of causation, 
which resolves it into ^^ the doctrine of the con- 
ditioned," ^Hhe impossibility of our conceiving an 
absolute commencement." ^' Is the person," he 
asks, *' an original, undetermined cause of the deter- 
mination of his will? .... If he be, in the first 
place it is impossible to conceive the possibility of 
this, and in the second, if the fact, though incon- 
ceivable, be allowed, it is impossible to see how a 
cause, undetermined by any motive, can be a 

rational, moral, and accountable cause We 

cannot compass in thought an undetermined cause, 

an absolute commencement The doctrine of 

moral liberty cannot be made conceivable, for w^e 
can only conceive the determined and the rela- 
tive." t 

Again, Eeid had maintained that it is " weak 
reasoning, in proof of necessity, to say such a motive 
prevailed, therefore it is the strongest, since the 
defenders of liberty maintain that the determination 
was made by the man and not by the motive." On 

* Discussions in Philosophy, &c. 

t Hamilton's Reid, note, p. 602. Edinburgh, 1849. 



144 



THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



this Sir William asks, '*But was the man determined 
by no motive to this determination ? Was his spe- 
cific volition to this or to that without a canse ? On 
the supposition that the sum of influences (motives, 
dispositions, tendencies), to volition A. is equal to 
12, and the sum of influences to counter-volition 
B. equal to 8, can we conceive that the determi- 
nation of volition A. should not be necessary ? We 
can only conceive the volition B. to be determined 
by supposing that the man creates (calls from non- 
existence into existence) a certain supplement of 
influences. But this creation, as actual, or in itself, 
is inconceivable ; and even to conceive of this in- 
conceivable act, we must suppose some cause by 
which the man is determined to exert it." ^ 

1. It is undeniably so ; we must^ and we do suppose 
some cause, and we believe that that cause, a perfectly 
suf&cient one, is found in the man himself, as en- 
dowed with a volitional faculty. The power which 
belongs to him, or rather he himself wielding this 
power, is strictly a causer, a primitive causer, the 
ultimate causer and creator of that which before had 
no existence — ^namely, a choice ; but not a creator 
amidst nonentity. Preexisting materials are before 
him, A.B.O.D., &c. (motive influences), but through 
* Hamilton's Eeid, note, p. 611. 



SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON". 145 

the medium of one or other, or all, of these he 
causes to exist what before was absolutely non-exist- 
ent — that is, a choice. His self-power does this, not 
the superior intrinsic force of A, B, C, or D, but Ae, 
in willing^ causes this new existence. His faculty, 
his liberty of choosing, means this or it means 
nothing. 

2. When it is said that if he acts without a 
motive, without the best motive, he cannot be a 
rational, a moral, an accountable cause, it is forgotten 
that this is the very essence of moral evil — that a 
being acts an irrational^ an immoral part, and is, for 
the time, not a rational, a moral cause. All the 
while, however, since it is he that acts (since he, 
in the exercise of his power, his freedom of choice, 
is the true and sole actor in the matter), he is 
just, therefore, in the highest sense accountable. 
A perfect moral being, one faithful to his con- 
stitution, for ever chooses what is strongest in 
reason and conscience, in other words, exercises his 
volitional power legitimately. But there is nothing 
but himself, ultimately, nothing but his own free 
will, to hinder him from making another choice. 
Were it not possible for a rational, a moral being to 
act an irrational, an immoral part, and at the same 
time to retain his accountability, there could never 



146 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

be such a tHng as moral evil in tlie universe. It is a 
matter of fact every day with rational, moral, ac- 
countable beings on earth, that while motive-influence 
A is = to 12, and motive-influence B is = to 8, and 
they know that they are so, they yet choose B and 
refuse A. Man endowed with the power of choosing 
is in himself 8i tvue causer, the only true, the ultimate 
causer of choice. 

3. When it is said " we cannot compass in thought 
an indetermined cause, an absolute commencement, it 
is admitted unreservedly; but we may be able to see 
and to show, nevertheless, that the thing, though in- 
conceivable, must be a reality. Nor ought we to 
forget that precisely the same difficulty, only in a far 
higher degree, attaches to the notion of the Supreme 
First Cause, though we do not therefore doubt Sis 
Reality, Sir Wm. Hamilton teaches, with a resist- 
less force which few except himself could command, 
that the inconceivableness of any fact of conscious- 
ness is no argument against its reality. *^It will 
argue nothing against the trustworthiness of con- 
sciousness," says he, 'Hhat all or any of its deliver- 
ances are inexplicable — are incomprehensible ; that 
is, that we are unable to conceive through a higher 
notion how that is possible which the deliverance 
avouches actually to be. To make the comprehensi- 



INCONCEIYABLENESS OF MORAL LIBERTY. 147 

bility of a datum of consciousness the criterion of 
its truth, would be indeed the climax of absurdity ; 
for the primary data of consciousness, as themselves 
the conditions under which all else is comprehended, 
are necessarily themselves incomprehensible. We 
know and can know only that they are, not how 
they can be.""^ Sir Wm., in fact is no less thoroughly 
convinced of the reality of moral liberty than Dr. Eeid, 
though he denies that the thing can be conceived, or 
that it can be logically established. '^ It will be ob- 
served," says he, "that I do not consider the inability 
to the notion any disproof of the j^c^ of Free-WilL"t 
All that he advances amounts substantially to this — > 
** there are among the phenomena of mind many 
facts which we must admit "as actual, but of whose 
possibility we are wholly unable to form any notion.";]: 
"But though inconceivable, this fact (of moral 
liberty) is not therefore false ; for there are many 
contradictories (and of contradictories one must and 
one only can be true) of which we are equally unable 
to conceive the possibility of either. The philosophy, 
therefore, which I profess, .... establishes Liberty 
practically as a fact, by showing that it is either 

* Hamilton's Eeid, p. 745. 
t lb. p. 611. % lb. note, p. 602. 



148 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

itself an immediate datum^ or is involved in an im- 
mediate datum of consciousness."* 

If anything were wanting, to satisfy us that on 
this great subject the most vigorous thinkers, the 
most accomplished philosophers, of the day, the men 
who are most competent to pronounce a judgment, 
and who have devoted themselves most laboriously 
to the study of the points at issue, are entirely 
agreed, the want is applied by the unqualified 
language of Cousin. The inconsistency (apparent 
or real) between his doctrine of the Will and 
another of the distinctive articles of his philosophy, 
*Hhe Impersonality of Eeason/' it falls not to us 
either to reconcile or to expose. For our purpose, 
it will be enough to quote a few sentences from his 
admirable critique on Locke's ^^ Essay on the Human 
Understanding." "Liberty," he says, "belongs to 
those acts which we perform with the consciousness 
of doing them, and of heing able not to do them." 
Again: "Analysis discovers in this single element 
(of willing) two terms — namely, a special act of 
willing, and the power of willing, which is within 
us, and to which we refer the special act. That act 
is an effect in relation to the power of willing, which 

* Hamilton's Eeid, note, p. 609. 



COUSIN. 149 

is its cause ; and this cause, in order to produce its 
effect, has need of no other theatre, and no other 
instrument than itself. .... At the moment it 
exerts itself on any special act we are conscious that 
it might exert itself in a special act totally contrary 
without any obstacle, without being thereby ex- 
hausted ; so that, after having changed its acts a 
hundred times, the faculty remains integrally the 
same, inexhaustible and identical, amidst the per- 
petual variety of its applications, being always able 
to do what it does not do, and able not to do what 
it does. Here, then, in all its plenitude, is the cha- 
racteristic of liberty." * 

*La liberte tombe sur les actes que nous faisons 

avec la conscience, et de les faire et de pouvoir ne pas les faire. 
L'analyse decouvre dans ce seul element deux termes encore, 
savoir, un acte special de vouloir, et la puissance de vouloir en 
nous a laquelle nous le rapportons. Get acte est un efifet par 
rapport a la puissance de vouloir qui en est la cause ; et cette 
cause, pour produire son effet, n'a pas besoin d'autre theatre, ni 

d'autre instrument qu'elle-meme au moment meme 

ou elle s'exerce par tel acte special, nous avons la conscience 
qu'elle pourrait s'exercer par un acte special, toute contraire 
sans nul obstacle et sans que pour cela elle fut epuisee ; de 
maniere, qu'apres avoir change dix fois, cent fois d'actes, la 
faculte restat integralement la meme, inepuisable et identique 
a elle-meme, dans la perpetuelle variete de ces applications, 
pouvant toujours faire ce qu'elle ne fait pas et ne pas faire ce 
qu'elle fait. La done est dans toute sa plenitude le caractere 



150 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

Will in man or in God ; Voluntary Moral Being 
is its own law. There is, indeed, a law to whicli the 
created will ought to he subject, to whicli it is formed 
to be subject, and in chosen subjection to which its 
true freedom consists. But there is no law which 
it must^ as of foreign necessity, obey. These two 
things are essentially opposed. Will and Law, Vo- 
luntary being and being acting necessarily as it is 
acted upon. A law is the expressed will of another. 
If the will of another, in itself, necessitates a certain 
mental state in me, there is no possible sphere for 
the exercise of my will; but if it be left to my 
choice to coincide or not with the will of another, 
in this case, but only in this case, I am in the fullest 
sense voluntary. My will and the expressed will 
of another may perfectly coincide ; there may be no 
just cause why they should not, and in a perfect 
creature, this entire coincidence of choice with the 
highest Law — that is, of the finite with the Infinite 
Will — is realised. The free choice of such a crea- 
ture and the Divine law are in blessed and unbroken 
harmony ; but will, as will, is essentially distinct 
from law as law. In vain do we attempt to explain 

de la Liberte. (Oours de THistoire de la Philosopliie. Tom. il 
pp. 502. 509. Paris : 1829.) 



WILL ITS OWN LAW. 151 

the phenomena of human volition on principles ana- 
logous to those on which we account for material 
phenomena ; the last can all be resolved into the 
action of pervading and irresistible forces, but if in 
any similar way we interpret the action of the will, 
we destroy its very nature. It is beginning with a 
fallacy, to search for a reason in Law, for a choice, 
because the ultimate reason must be the independent 
act of the free worker himself. He has so elected ; 
this may literally be all, and no rational explanation 
why he has so elected, may be possible. The human 
will ought to be in harmony with the highest law^ 
that of God, but it cannot be compelled ; it may act 
in the face of law, of reason, and no cause whatever 
can be assigned, except itself. It belongs to man to • 
choose, and his choice finds its ultimate ground, often 
its only ground, in himself. 

The self-determining power of the Will is a pal- 
pable misnomer. Will is only the name for a par- 
ticular fact in the constitution of the human soul, 
a particular attribute with which the Maker has 
endowed it. When a man forms a deliberate pre- 
ference, he exhibits this attribute, he verifies this 
fact in his constitution. But will is a thing, not a 
being, an agent. It is absurd to say that it deter- 
mines itself. It itself has no real objective existence, 



152 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

except in its embodiment in an act, and only in tlie 
moment of the. act. The reasoning by which Pre- 
sident Edwards demolishes this fallacy is "unanswer- 
able. But, meanwhile, it may yet be true that man 
determines himself. The reasoning, which is resist- 
less as against the former position, may be futile 
when directed against this position. We hold that 
it is. The self-determining power, not of the will, 
but of the being endowed with will, of man, is only 
a significant mode of announcing the fact, which 
consciousness attests with such emphasis, that he is 
voluntary and independent. Possessing the faculty 
of choosing, he is in choosing self-governed, self- 
determined. 

But this constitutional self-government of the 
human soul does not involve indifference to good 
and to evil, a moral equilibrium, in no degree more 
inclined to one side than another. The only perfect 
moral freedom in the universe is that, which ever 
owns the supremacy of truth and right, and is in 
uninterrupted harmony with them. The Eternal 
knows no equilibrium, no indifference, but an in- 
finite inclination to good and an infinite abhorrence 
of evil ; and the higher and the more perfect the 
Created Nature is, the more complete in this respect 
will be its assimilation to the Divine, and with the 



SELF-DETERMINATION, ETC. 153 

more entire voluntariness and the more conscious 
delight will it yield itself to the control of Truth 
and of Moral law: hut it must yield itself. Con- 
science and Eeason are the ordained guides of the 
Created mind. In themselves, and on every ground, 
whether of duty or of interest, they are entitled to 
be its guides. The intimations of these powers are 
the more sacred, the more awful, that they are felt 
to express the very will of the Creator. Were the 
human soul perfect and infallible, these intimations 
would be for ever paramount to it; but it is so 
constituted at the same time, that this result can in 
no way be necessitated from without : there can be 
no must to it. It may or it may not decide for 
truth and right, but whether it does or not, must 
depend on itself, ultimately and alone : there is no 
power out of itself that can necessitate its acting, — 
it is its own law. 

K the reasonings which we have hazarded be 
sound, we are furnished with a short and decisive 
reply to many of the conclusions of an earlier 
metaphysical theology. '^ The Will always follows 
the last judgment, the last dictate of the under- 
standing" — this has been accepted as revealing the 
law of the will ; the invariable and necessary order 
of its movement ; the constitution according to which 
7* 



154 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

it acts, according to wliicli it must act. On the 
principles wliicli liave been advanced, we are entitled 
to assert, not only tliat this is not the law of the 
will, but that there is and can be no law to the will, 
in the sense here meant. Will is power, liberty to 
choose ; Law, in the sense here meant, is necessitat- 
ing force, force which there is no possibility of resist- 
ing: these two things are mutually destructive. 
The Being endowed with the faculty of Will is his 
own law, — that is, he is a true causer, producing 
effects apart from any other cause. 

The will may follow the dictate, and the last 
dictate of the understanding: in rational beings, 
who are true to their nature, the will always follows 
the dictate of the understanding and the conscience ; 
because they are perfect and so long as they are 
perfect, their powers act in harmony, and the mov- 
ing principle is faithful to the design and meaning 
of its formation. But, in point of fact, the will in 
man often does not follow the decision of the judg- 
ment, and this is the very evil and sin that- it 
does not: in cases without number^ in the large 
proportion of cases which the moral history of men 
presents, the will does not follow the last judgment. 
It is unaccountable blindness to the most glaring facts 
of consciousness to assert, that what a man wishes 



LAST DICTATE OF UKDEESTA^^DING. 155 

and chooses, lie must at tlie moment judge best on 
tlie whole. On the very contrary, we maintain it, 
as the most nndeniable fact, that he may not judge^ 
may not tliinh^ at all at the moment, but only 
strongly feel and desire ; he may not suffer himself 
to think, and may forcibly suppress and put away 
from him every dictate of his judgment : his judg- 
ment, if he listen to it for an instant, instead of 
favouring his choice, may be directly and vehemently 
opposed to it. 

When, again, it is said, " the will is always as the 
prevailing inclination of the soul ;" or again, ^4t is 
always as the greatest apparent good f or when this 
last is still farther explained, and it is said, ^* the will 
always follows that which, on the whole^ at the 
moment, is most pleasing^ most agreeable to it" {this, 
it is expressly avowed, is what is meant by the greatest 
apparent good\ there is a sense in which every one 
of these different forms of definition maybe accepted, 
in which, indeed, they are only the merest truisms. 
Willing, choosing, does exhibit ^q prevailing inclina- 
tion of the soul, does show what is on the whole most 
pleasing^ most agreeable to it at the moment ; in other 
words, what on the whole it prefers. But nothing is 
gained hereby, and an interpretation of the pheno- 
mena of volition, their ground, and their logical 



156 



THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



sequence, is as far to seek as ever. Moreover, we 
must be on our guard lest, in these definitions, wliicli 
are true so far as they go, but are not uncondition- 
ally and universally true, there be not intended a 
one-sided interpretation. The words ^^ prevailing 
inclination," '^greatest apparent good," '^most pleas- 
ing, most agreeable to the soul," are very general, 
even ambiguous. On two sides they may convey 
what is thoroughly and palpably false. 

On the one hand, when it is said a thing chosen 
must be the Tnost pleasing^ most agreeable to the soul 
at the moment, we ask, most pleasing and agreeable 
to what ? Is it meant to conscience and reason ? If 
so, the statement is glaringly untrue. A choice may 
be, and often is, utterly repugnant to conscience and 
reason; both may vehemently denounce it at the 
moment, or neither may be suffered to utter its voice. 
A choice may be founded not on judgment, not on 
moral conviction, but on feeling and passion. Passion 
and feeling may for the time overmaster the under- 
standing and the moral nature. The very essence 
of moral evil is, that it is violence done to the righ* 
fal governing powers of the soul : if men always 
obeyed only these, their ordained guides, they coulcj 
not be charged with crime. 

On the other hand, is it meant most pleasing 



GREATEST APPARENT GOOD. 157 

agreeable to the appetites, tlie passions, the feelings ; 
in general, to what we currently distinguish as the 
inclinations ? If so, this must be no less positively 
denied. The martyr at the stake deliberately chooses 
torture and death ; but pain has not therefore changed 
its character to him ; Ms nature, like that of every 
other human being, recoils from it. But that which 
he shudders even to think of, which is inexpressibly 
repugnant to his feelings, and to his sentiment being, 
he yet chooses, deliberately and with his whole soul 
determines and prefers to meet. The very highest 
virtue on this earth is that which resists the solicita- 
tion of what is simply pleasing and agreeable, which 
crucifies appetite, passion, feeling, inclination, and at 
all costs and at all hazards obeys the voice of Con- 
science and Reason. 

One other of the accepted conclusions of what we 
make bold to designate a false and pestilent meta- 
physics, may here be noticed — ** The will is always 
determined by the strongest motive." 

That influence, be it what it may, which at last 
overcomes the being — or, rather, with which he 
connects himself — ^is in point of fact, beyond all 
question, the strongest to him at the moment ; he 
voluntarily, independently, makes it {not finds it) the 
strongest. It cannot surely be meant that in this 



158 THE MYSTEKY, ETC. 

way the real and essential wortli, the real, compara- 
tive force, of all the appeals which are addressed to 
the mind is ascertained? That motive which is 
actually adopted is the strongest in fact ; but surely 
it cannot be meant that it must also be the strongest 
in itself its essential force considered. On the con 
trary, it is certain that the strongest in fact is often 
the weakest in reality ; the understanding may at the 
moment pronounce it to be the weakest, and the con- 
science may pronounce it to be the most wicked. It 
is the strongest in fact, for it is accepted and the 
others are refused ; but that it is really the strongest, 
and that only because it is the strongest it com- 
mands, and cannot but command, the will, is surely 
too monstrous to be believed. The very essence of 
crime is, that it is not necessary but voluntary ; that 
the force to which the will yields it might and could 
have resisted, — ^in other words, that, by a higher 
exercise of the understanding and the conscience, it 
might and could have made a perfectly opposite 
choice ; — that it did not, is just on this account, and 
no other, its disgrace and its- crime. 

It is clear as sunlight, that if, in every instance, 
the motive to which the Will yields in fact be one 
to which it yields necessarily^ to which it must and 
cannot but yield, then all human actions, however 



NO LAW, OUT OF ITSELF, TO WILL. 159 

vicious or virtuous, are as inevitable as the falling of 
tlie rain or the movement of the planets. There can 
he neither virtue nor vice in the first any more than 
in the second, and a system of universal and unmi- 
tigated fatalism is the result."^ 

In the face of all this. Consciousness proclaims, in 
the most unambiguous terms, that the motive, the 
influence or combination of influences, to which the 
voluntary agent yields, may be the weakest in Eea- 
son and the wickedest in Conscience. The design of 
his constitution is, that passion, and desire, and in- 
clination, whencesoever arising, should be under the 
government of his higher nature ; but it is left to 
him to choose whether this order shall be maintained 
or not. He is endowed with absolute power of 
choice, with perfect liberty to choose ; and it is in 
the exercise of this power, this liberty, that he 
chooses it shall not be maintained. No reason, no 
cause can be assigned for this result except himself — 
he chooses it : he ought to have, he might, he could 

* Hobbes' Essay on Liberty and Necessity (Manchester, 
1839) ; Spinoza Ethica, Prop. 32, coroL 1, 2 : p. 63, also De 
Libertate Humana, voL i. ; and Principia Phil., de Yol. Dei, 
vol. ii. (Jena, 1802) . It is passing strange that Spinoza, Hobbes, 
and Job"- Edwards should, in the issue, be thoroughly at bne. 



160 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

have made a different choice, but lie did not, simply 
and only because he would not 

Here is the first indispensable condition of Ee- 
sponsibility. Men are voluntary beings, and it is 
just, therefore, and to this extent and no further, 
that they are responsible beings. So far as the course 
they take is their choice, so far as they have been 
perfectly free to choose or refuse it, and have taken 
it simply because they chose it, so far but no farther 
can a reckoning justly be demanded of them. We 
are responsible for what is wholly our own doing, 
and is left wholly to our own option, but not for 
what is independent of us. That which my will 
neither causes nor can prevent, can, on no just 
ground, be charged to my account, and neither the 
merit nor the blame which it may involve can be 
attributed to me. That, on the other hand, which 
is truly my choosing, which I freely wished and 
of my own accord originated, — of which, therefore, 
I am strictly the causer, the voluntary causer, — 
brings upon me righteously either its punishment or 
its reward. Power, in the sense of perfect liberty 
to choose, is the necessary condition and the exact 
measure of responsibility. 

n. But while man has power and is perfectly free 



MORAL ABILITY. 161 

to choose for himself, is it equally certain that he is 
so endowed by his Maker, as to be capable of rightly 
using this faculty, this freedom, so as therefore to be 
justly responsible for his use of them ? Moral power 
is not simply liberty of choice ; it has a higher mean- 
ing, and includes capacity of exercising this liberty. 
This is the second indispensable condition of responsi- 
bility. A maniac or an idiot has his likings and dis- 
likings, his preferences, his choices, but his ability, 
rationally and morally to choose, is gone, and his 
responsibility is gone with it. Voluntariness is an 
attribute of the lower animals ; will in them is as real 
as it is in us, but it is limited in its range by their 
nature, their endowments, and their circumstances. 
Following out a legitimate analogy, we can believe 
that among human beings there may be great specific 
diversities of moral power with an entire generic 
similarity. All men alike are endowed with freedom 
of choice, with power to choose for themselves ; but 
the range of this power, and the wise and virtuous 
exercise of it, may be, and in point of fact are found 
to be, exceedingly various. 

It is very clear that men themselves may and do 
injure essentially, and even permanently, their own 
moral independence and strength. For such injury 
they are alone responsible. Men may impair their 



162 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

intellect and sink into a condition of ignorance and 
imbecility ; they may also misguide and pollute their 
affections, and, as a consequence of all tliis, they shall 
have, not indeed less freedom or less power to choose, 
but less ability to choose aright. Every false and 
vicious choice which a man makes, every choice at 
variance with the true ends of the moral organisa- 
tion, is an injury to the faculty of Will itself; but 
an injury for which, with all its consequences, the 
wrongdoer himself is entirely accountable. 

It is a law of our mental nature that habit adds a 
force, ever accumulating, whether to good or to evil 
principles, above what belongs to themselves simply. 
When the lower desires, instead of being resisted, are 
suffered to govern, the diflSiculty of resistance to them 
is palpably increased. By long habit, it is quite pos- 
sible in this way so to weaken the power of the higher 
nature, and proportionally to augment the clamorous 
strength of the lower nature, that an individual may 
be said to have substituted in the place of his power 
of choice, a kind of moral necessity. But it is his 
own work, wholly and only, and can be the work 
of none else. 

There is even a kind of physical necessity, under 
the tyranny of which many bring themselves ; but 
they bring themselves ; of their own choice alone, they 



GROUND OF RESPONSIBILITY. 163 

bring themselves under this cruel tyranny. The 
drunkard, for example, by long indulgence forms 
habits of intemperance which are bodily almost more 
than mental. He creates a state of positive disease, 
and at last his excesses are required to satisfy a phy- 
sical craving over which his mind has lost almost all 
control. In this state, under an imperious physical 
necessity, he can scarcely be held responsible for his 
acts of intemperance ; but he is responsible for bring- 
ing himself into this condition, and all the conse- 
quences resulting from it are legitimately thrown 
back upon him. 

But it may be asked, is there no such thing as 
involuntary, and therefore irresponsible, moral in- 
capacity? Nay, more, is there no such thing as 
actual moral malformation, involuntary and there- 
fore irresponsible malformation ? On the one hand, 
let us imagine a condition of semi-barbarism, though 
in the centre of a surrounding civilisation — perhaps 
even a surrounding Christianity — a condition in 
which human beings grow up without education, 
without knowledge, except such as is gained through 
the senses and flows into them spontaneously as every- 
day experience ; in which they constantly breathe a 
polluted moral atmosphere, and witness scenes that 
are only shocking to right reason and to all morality. 



164 THE MYSTEKY, ETC. 

No enlightened and candid person will deny, that 
such beings deserves to be called voluntary and re- 
sponsible, in a far more limited sense than others. It 
admits of no question that their actions, almost their 
opinions and their principles, instead of being delibe- 
rately chosen by themselves, must often be virtually 
determined for them."^ In their state of ignorance, 
and with prejudices and habits in great part the effect 
of circumstances, they are indeed as free, have as 
much power, to choose as ever, but the power of 
choosing aright is glaringly and wofuUy circum- 
scribed. They are not accountable for the fact being 
thus, because it originates in causes out of themselves, 
over which they have had no command. It is re- 
cognised at once, that their responsibility is limited 
by their power; this being obviously circumscribed 
compared with that of other men, their responsibility 
also is proportionally circumscribed. So far as they 
have received from their Maker, and so far as, under 
his providence, it has been in their power to re- 
tain and put forth a capacity of choosing for them- 
selves, according to the law of reason and conscience ; 

* Part of the difficulty here is connected with the peculiar 
representationary, hereditary constitution under which human 
beings, as a race, are placed. This difficulty is treated at large 
at pp. 228-31. 



GRADATIONS OF RESPONSIBILITY. 165 

BO far as their principles, their opinions, and their 
actions are deliberate and voluntary, and not the 
necessary growth of their circumstances and their 
discipline, — so far they are perfectly accountable, 
but no farther. There are, and there must be, in 
this way, gradations of responsiblity ; and the patent 
fact is that these gradations of responsibility must 
correspond with the diversities of intellectual and 
moral endowment and development among human 
beings. 

On the other hand, we cannot be ignorant of the 
fact, that physical constitution and temperament ex- 
ert a powerful influence over the use of reason and 
of conscience, and therefore also over the determin- 
ations of the will. Passion, in several of its modes, 
is connected with the condition of the blood, the 
brain, the nervous system, and the physical organ- 
isation generally. It is the appointed office of the 
higher, especially the moral, powers of the soul to 
regulate and govern the lower appetites and affec- 
tions ; and for the human race as a whole the govern- 
ing power is consciously adequate ; and the lawless 
outbreaks of passion, in whatever form, are not irre- 
sistible, but are felt to be owing solely to the voluntary 
perversity of the being, who could and might, but will 
not, command and quell them. The violent rage to 



166 THE MYSTEKY, ETC. 

wWcli men resign themselves, the discontent, the 
acerbity, the jealousy, the envy, and the fleshly lusts 
which they indulge, are not physical misfortunes, 
but moral crimes, which they deliberately perpetrate, 
and were endowed with abundant power to avoid. 
But there are tendencies to acts, otherwise meriting 
to be called crimes, which are physically irresistible. 
The tendency, arising solely from bodily, constitu- 
tional causes, to madness, is an extreme verification 
of this position. The mind may become thoroughly 
deranged ; the reason, and of course the conscience, 
may lose their power ; but the individual is a sufferer, 
not a criminal. And much short of this issue, wher- 
ever a tendency is physically invincible, wherever it 
has arisen from causes which we did not create, and 
over which we have no control, there and to this ex- 
tent responsibihty has certainly ceased. 

These principles rest upon the foundation of 
immutable rectitude, and no reasonings, however 
apparently profound, and however logically con- 
structed, must be suffered to shake our faith in 
their validity. The sense of responsibility is a 
universal consciousness ; but this is not more sure 
nor more widely extended in conscious humanity 
than is the sense of moral liberty and of moral ability. 
The two are inseparable. Where we are conscious 



IRRESPONSIBLE INABILITY. 167 

that, without fault of ours, we had not strength suffi- 
cient for the exigency, — that either an action was 
not the result of our choice, or that, owing to causes 
which we did not create^ and could not control, we 
were incapable of choosing otherwise, — ^precisely so 
far as we are conscious of this, we are troubled by 
no sense of guilt, and made happy by no sense of 
merit. But the sense of guilt we cannot throw off, — 
or, on the other hand, the delight of an approving 
conscience we cannot suppress, — where we feel that 
we were first free, and second so endowed as to be 
able, to have left a thing undone or to have done it, 
and that we did it or left it undone simply because 
we chose to do it or to leave it undone. In spite of 
fallacious theories of physical and moral necessity, 
human nature proclaims with one voice. Moral Ees- 
ponsibility. Moral Freedom, and Moral Ability. In 
the profound but clear depths of his consciousness, 
man finds it revealed that he must give account of 
himself to God ; but the reason, the ground of this 
announcement is made known simultaneously with 
it. It is this, — that his actions are his own ; that he 
is free and able to act and not to act, according to 
his own choice ; the moral good and the moral evil of 
his course therefore^ — but only therefore^ thus far ^ and 
only thus far ^ — are righteously attributable to him. 



SECTION III. 

MORAL EVIL, THE VOLUNTARY ABUSE 
OF MORAL POWER. 

Material, Moral Universe — Eesisting Force in Moral, not 
IN Material — Men, Persons, not Things — Crime, Keality 
AND Spread — Dilettante Morality — Moral Antithesis — 
Philosophical Necessity, Leibnitz, Soame Jenyns — Mat- 
ter, Seat of Evil — Higher Laws of Man's Being — ^Essence 
of Crime, Voluntariness — Suspension of Law of Gravit- 
ation — Moral Disorder — Mystery of Created Will — 
Almighty resisted — Moral Power, Freedom, Licentious- 
ness. 



MORAL UNIVERSE. 

The contrast between the material and the moral 
spheres is deeply aflfecting. Thie physical imiyerse is 
a magnificent harmony. Even our planetary system, 
— the sun -with the planets and their satellites for 
ever peacefully fulfilling their distinct ofiices, — is a 
beautiful revelation of order and of law. Each of the 
planetary systems that enrich immensity is another 
such exquisite revelation. Perhaps each star in the 
mighty concave, each atom of starry dust, each speck 
of starry vapour, and each of the myriads on myriads 
of luminous points which no human eye, no telescopic 
power has reached, but whose existence science infers 
with undoubting confidence, — each is not a unit but 
a system. Perhaps these systems again, each perfect 
in itself, are not separate and isolated, but beautifully 
arranged, the one to the other, — units in a grander 
whole, the distinct and varying notes of a mighty 
symphony, all blending to produce a full diapason 
of song, the music of the revolving spheres, that 
matchless melody which ravishes the ear of God. 

Moral, unlike material harmony, perhaps is yet to 
be, but it is not. We believe that the spiritual 
universe has its ideal, ere long to be realised, and 

8 C169] 



170 



THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



that it is not, as it may seem to us to be, without 
law and without aim. Perhaps its destined harmony 
is as perfect as that of the visible creation, and un- %■ 
utterably more beauteous : and tokens and evidences 
of this beauteous Future may be discoverable, 
amidst present and far spread disorder. Those grand 
and eternal principles, in Avhich rational and moral 
being is founded, are no less real than the univer- 
sal law of gravitation is in the sphere of nature. 
Eighteousness, Truth, and Love are the ordained 
governing laws of created mind. The Eternal Fact 
was and is, and ever shall be, that all blessedness, 
all wisdom, all honour, all safety, all life (in this 
region) are identified with the reign of these prin- 
ciples. The slightest departure from them is inevi- 
tably productive of evil and can be productive 
of nothing else. No power in the universe could 
make it otherwise, and no volition, no act of the 
Highest was needed to make it as it is. Created 
Mind is formed to be in harmony with these laws ; 
in order to its very heing^ as a constituted existence, 
it must be in harmony with them : it loses being, it 
parts with what enters into its essence, it deranges 
its constitution, it strikes at its very life, in depart- 
ing from them. These are the very principles which 
are impersonated in the Infinite Nature. They are 



MEN, PERSONS, NOT THINGS. 171 

the inalienable possessions of ^^The One." He is 
tlie Uncreated Subject, they are the Uncreated 
Modes. They constitute his essence, so far as it can 
be known by us. He is Eighteonsness, is Truth, is 
Love, and that which he is, is Infinitely and un- 
changeably beautiful in his sight. Will in Grod, 
absolutely free and spontaneous, is Infinite inclina- 
tion to all Good, Infinite Love of all Good. No 
cause from within, and none from without, can ever 
arise to produce change. Ever and only there ex- 
ists Infinite cause for permanence. And created 
minds are original likenesses of the Uncreated, the 
only likenesses which creation affords. They are 
the offspring of God,*^ children of the Universal 
Father, bearing, as far as is possible to creatures, 
the image of the Creator. Their nature is after the 
Infinite Pattern, and their destiny is to become like 
Him from whom they sprang, and peacefully and 
joyously to rise into His image. There is an ideal 
harmony to which the moral universe is appointed ; 
the constitution of moral being and its governing 
laws predict, if they have not secured it. They 
have not secured it, it has not been secured ; the 
harmony is yet ideal^ not actual, and the funda- 

Vevog Tov Qeov^ Acts, xvii. 29. 



172 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

mental reason lies in this^ that Men are persons not 
things^ not acted upon merely by influences, how- 
ever holy and sovereign, but themselves consciously, 
voluntarily acting. 

The material creation consists of things not persons 
— unconscious, involuntary, powerless things. The 
laws which govern tliem are obeyed implicitly, unin- 
terruptedly; they cannot be disobeyed. Indeed, 
truly, they are neither obeyed nor disobeyed. They 
are simply the resistless Divine power exerted in a 
region where all is passive, and where resistance is 
impossible. Irregularity in such a region could ori- 
ginate only in the great Mover himself, in a defect 
of his power, or in a change in his purpose. But 
in the Moral Universe there are other Movers 
besides the Almighty, other wills besides his, over 
which his physical omnipotence can have no control. 
They might be crushed, annihilated in a moment by 
his power ; but so long as they exist as wills^ physi- 
cal omnipotence has no relation to them. A human 
mind is endowed with a power which the Creator 
can influence by his truth and his spirit, but which 
even he cannot necessitate. It is the abuse of this 
mysterious faculty which has filled the world with 
all the varieties and with an overwhelming amount 
of suffering and crime. 



DILETTANTE MORALITY. 173 

With those who deny the reality of Moral Evil, — 
who see nothing worse in human agency than the 
necessary effect of circumstances, of nnayoidable ig- 
norance or weakness, — who make no essential dis- 
tinction between deliberate murder and self-sacri- 
ficing kindness, and who maintain that the one is no 
crime and the other no excellence, no virtue, — we can 
here have no controversy. They have to learn the 
elementary principles of moral truth. All the lan- 
guages of the many-tongued earth are full of words, 
that not only have no meaning, but are deliberate 
falsehoods, unless they involve the distinction between 
crimes and weaknesses or faults of judgment. The 
laws of all nations are a pitiful burlesque ; the daily 
conversation of men is a practised deception on one 
another ; the natural, the deepest convictions of men 
are a cruel mockery, except on this ground. 

Not only the reality, but the sweeping extent of 
moral evil is so palpable, that they who do not ac- 
knowledge it, must be either blind or insane, or they 
must avow what they know to be untrue. Injustice, 
falsehood, treachery, licentiousness, cruelty, by the 
unanimous verdict of the sane world, are not weak- 
nesses, not unavoidable errors, but crimes, — dark, 
/'detestable crimes. 

Some of the more refined of the early English 



174 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

Deists, copying not the purest of the ethical schools 
of Greece, represent sin as an offence against taste 
rather than against conscience."^ It is a violation of 
the moral unities, a defect of (esthetic culture, an 
obtuseness of the sense of the beautiful. The simple 
but unanswerable objection to this is, that it falls 
immeasurably below the facts of experience and of 
consciousness. There is a moral taste, and crime is 
its depravation; there is moral beauty, and crime 
may be defined moral deformity and ugliness. But 
there is something in it far darker and more hateful, 
which this mode of representation cannot convey. 
The mind of the moral transgressor is conscious of a 
kind, and an amount, of demerit, which it is worse 
than trifling, it is cruel, to speak of in the terms of a 
dilettante morality. When reason and conscience 
are ^dolated, and the Great God of all himself defied, 
can it be borne that this is to be measured by the 
laws of taste, the insipid maxims of a refined culti- 
vation ? The physician would exhibit neither his 
good sense nor his good feeling, who should describe 
a dangerous, perhaps mortal wound, by saying that 
its form was inartistic, and its general appearance 
out of keeping with the laws of the beautiful. 

* Shaftesbury's " Characteristics." 



EVIL, COMPLEMENT OF GOOD. 175 

Somethmg like Swedenborg's doctrine of cor- 
respondences, or rather Jacob Boelime's notion of 
what we niav call the antithetic and dualistic forms 
in nature, has found its way into the region of 
ethical speculation. Male and female, body and 
soul, day and night, heat and cold, summer and 
winter, north and south, attraction and repulsion, 
positive and negative poles, are among the many 
contraries of which nature is the repository, and to 
which the character of necessity seems to belong. 
We cannot conceive nature without them, they seem 
essential to its completeness. A one-sided creation 
would be unsymmetrical and monotonous. It is 
argued that this characteristic must be no less essen- 
tial in mind than in nature ; there must be moral 
antitheses, a moral as well as a material polarity. Evil 
and good must be alike necessary, and together con- 
stitute a completed moral universe. It can scarcely 
be doubted, that that ruthless logic of Germany 
which proclaims the identity of contraries*, and with 
equal ease makes nothing something, and something 
nothing, and something and nothing together a 

* Hegel's Encyclopadie, Erster Theil, die Wessenschaft der 
Logik. Heidelburgh, 1827. See also Spinoza, Ethica, vol. i. 
of Works. Jena, 1802. 



176 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

reality wliich. neither alone could be, has done mnch 
to extend a theory which is perverse in every region, 
but in morals must be fall of the deadliest mischief. 
One grieves to meet ever and again, at the present 
day, in writers of a mystic and dreamy genius, the 
influence of a lurking idea that evil is not really evil, 
but is essential to good. Like darkness and light, 
evil is necessary to reveal the true nature, to impress 
with the worth, and to deepen the glow, of good. 
Both are alike indispensable, and belong to the 
necessary constitution of the universe. Two things 
are forgotten. First, evil is not the necessary com- 
plement of good, else the Great Being is imperfect. 
" God is light, and in him is no darkness at all :" 
there is one nature in which evil is not needed to 
constitute perfect excellence. Second, on this theory 
the minghng and the conflict of e\dl with good must 
be everlasting ; and it would be a sorrowful destiny 
for created being, even for the God of all, were such 
the dismal prospect. 

But are we not compelled, it is asked, in con- 
ceiving a universe, to conceive also along with it the 
existence of evil ? Without confounding evil with 
good, or imagining that it is inevitable as the com- 
plement of good, are we not yet obliged to presume 



ESSENCE OF CRIME YOLUXTARINESS. 177 

its existence."^ Gradation, at all events limitation, in 
created beings, we cannot escape ; even if we imagine 
not different races differently endowed, but one race, 
constituted on a common principle, be the endow- 
ments of tliis race wliat tliej^ '^^J^ tliey must be 
limited; in one direction and another, in all direc- 
tions to some extent, tliey must ever fall below per- 
fection. Limitation, defect of good, is not tliis evil? 
And limitation in created being there must he ; the 
sufficient reason for this is ever found in its essential 
constitution. Limitation is undoubtedly evil in one 
sense ; it may justly be so called : the doctrine of 
philosophical necessity, the principle of the sufl&cient 
reason, is thus for unexceptionable. Imperfection 
may be called e\dl, but can it also be called crime ? 
Certainly not ; and herein lies the strength of the 
objection to this mode of representing sin, an objec- 
tion perfectly fatal. Moral evil is not a negative, 
but a dire and malignant positive. The transgressor 
is not conscious of a mere imperfection, an imper- 
fection above all necessarily belonging to his being, 
without fault of his : he is perfectly conscious, not 
of yielding to weakness, but of wilfully misusing 

"*" Soame Jenyns' Inquiry, London, 1757. King's Essay on 
the Origin of Evil. Cambridge, 1758. Leibnitz, Essais de 
Thod. Amsterdam, 1712, pp. 112—125. 
8^ 



178 THE MYSTEEY, ETC. 

power, conscious of having positively done some- 
thing wHcli lie need not have done, and wliicli lie 
did simply because lie would do it. 

The notion of matter being the seat and source 
of evil, — eternal matter and eternal God, — of a 
dualism in the universe and in each individual, is 
very ancient, very natural, and, on some sides, even 
suggestive of truth. A large class of human crimes 
have undeniably a material origin, and a large 
number besides can be resolved more or less re- 
motely into material causes. But when it is main- 
tained, that crime is nothing else than the revolt of 
the animal against the rational nature, the position 
is assailable on two grounds. First, the possibility 
of moral evil in purely spiritual natures would then 
be denied. Second, consciousness assures every 
human being that there are crimes, of which he is 
guilty, that are not dependent in their origin, their 
motive, or any of their relations, on his material 
organisation. But were the position generalised, 
and were it maintained that crime is the revolt of 
the lower against the higher nature of man, includ- 
ing in the lower all except conscience and reason, 
we are prepared to accept the terms as a true and 
comprehensive definition. In every instance of 
wrong-doing, the voice of reason and conscience have 



REVOLT OF LOAVER AGAINST IIIGIIER NATURE. 179 

been overborne and somctliing lower than tliey, lias 
been obeyed. Crime is always a departure not only 
from God, but from wisdom, from purity, from rec- 
titude, from safety, from true good. In that act, the 
voluntary agent has either not suffered the higher 
governing powers of his mind to speak, or he has 
perversely disregarded them and chosen some other 
guidance for the time. He is free, — that is one side, 
but he is not therefore released from the everlasting 
imperative, ''the ought," — ^that is the other side. His 
will is a law to itself, but he is not therefore irrespon- 
sible, on the contrary, he is on this very account re- 
sponsible, in the highest imaginable degree. 

Man is under Law. With all his powers and en- 
dowments of every kind — that of will included — ^he 
is under the obligations of law, and must render 
account of the use he has made of every gift where- 
with his nature has been enriched. Power has been 
entrusted to him, but not irresponsible power. It is 
given to him, of his own free choice, to determine 
his course, whether by the higher or by the lower 
laws of his being, but what that course ought to he is 
no uncertainty and no contingency. The path of 
safety, of honour, of wisdom, of moral excellence, is 
set luminously before him. He has guides from 
within which point to that path with no unsteady 



180 THE MYSTEEY, ETC. 

hand, and it is at Ms peril if lie abandon sucli lioly 
guidance and turn to darkness and crime. But it 
is left entirely to his option. Moral evil is always 
a free, though a perverse choice, a conscious product 
of the human will and of nothing else. It has many 
sides, and admits of as many different definitions, 
but this characteristic of voluntariness must enter 
into them all. 

In its first and nearest aspect it is resistance to 
conscience and reason. But these, again, are the 
voice of The Infinite in man, and it thus becomes 
violation of the Supreme Will. The nature and 
will of The Most High reveal the eternal and im- 
mutable constitution of things, and it thus becomes 
rebellion not merely against Him, but against all 
moral order and law, against the essential and ne- 
cessary principles of the Intelligent, Moral Universe. 
But in whichever of its many aspects it be regarded, 
its essential feature remains the same — wilful abuse of 
moral liberty^ moral power. The perfect volun- 
tariness of moral evil, of all moral evil, is a first, a 
fundamental principle. The wrong-doer is conscious 
to himself, at the moment, that what he does, he 
does of his own choice and by his own fault. In 
the act of crime, he is as convinced as he is of his 
own existence, that no foreign compulsion is exerted 



ABUSE OF MORAL FREEDOM. 181 

upon him, and that no condition of mere invincihle 
passivity is induced within him ; convinced that he 
might have and that he could have done otherwise, 
and that the only reason why he did wrong was that 
he wished, chose, determined to do wrong. It is its 
voluntariness, and its voluntariness only^ that con- 
stitutes his deed a crime. He knew that it was 
wrong. Conscience and Eeason, his ordained guides, 
proclaimed it wrong. But it was left to him to 
make his own election, and he was unfaithful to the 
trust. The voluntary abuse of moral power is moral 
evil. 

Here is the mystery, the profound and awful mys- 
tery, of created will. In its very nature it is capable 
of resisting the Uncreated ; it has, in fact, resisted 
him. The power which he conferred has been wil- 
fully, wickedly abused, in order to violate his laws 
and to disturb and embroil his government. Moral 
liberty, degenerating to licentiousness, moral power 
wilfully perverted, is moral evil, alone is moral evil ; 
and the origin, the sole origin, of this plague in the 
universe, is the voluntary abuse of power and free- 
dom by the created being. 

K we could conceive one of the planets by some 
means able to overcome the combined action of the 
centripetal and centrifugal forces, — if we could con- 



182 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

ceive an immense nnmber of planets, belonging to 
various systems, breaking loose and rusting law- 
lessly forth, into space, coming into collision not witli 
one another only, but with the globes and systems 
that pursued their ordained course, — -even this ter- 
rific crash of worlds would feebly represent the vast 
disorder, the havoc and the ruin, of the moral uni- 
verse. A holy privilege, a dignity of the most 
sacred kind, has become an almost unmitigated curse. 
The record of the present condition of the world, the 
tistory of all nations and of all past ages, is one of 
manifold crime and of suffering as varied, the never- 
failing consequent of crime. 

But The Holy One is blameless ! We assert it 
and shall strive to exhibit it. Man, in defiance of 
his Maker, is the creator of evil on this earth. 



SECTION IV. 

THE CREATOR INFINITELY OPPOSED 
TO MORAL EVIL. 

Physical Evil conceivable — Moral Evil unalterably, 
Infinitely hateful — ^Language of Earlier Theology — 
Motive in Creating — No Conscious End, Higher than 
Highest End — Benevolence, Moral Excellence, its 
OWN End — Necessity of Creation ? — Cousin— Kesistlbss, 
Creative Lovingness — Universe Intelligent, Moral, 
Voluntary — Will, not Necessitable — Eesistance to 
God a daily Fact — First False Choice, Inpreventiblb 
— ^Blasphemy, God could prevent, did not — Edwards — 
Foreknowledge — God Eternal Antagonist of Moral 
Evil. 



n«3 



GOD'S ANTAGONISM TO EVIL. 

MiG-HT not a Good Being sanction suffering, if by 
this means a liiglier moral advantage, — higlier wis- 
dom, higher purity, higher spiritual strength, higher 
perfection and blessedness of Life, — were secured 
to the sufferer ? Undoubtedly he might : it is not 
inconceivable that a Good Being might even sanction 
suffering (involving no real and permanent injury) 
in the case of one creature, for the sake of higher 
perfection and blessedness to other creatures though 
not to itself. In this case difficulty, to some extent, 
would be created, and in spite of ourselves we should 
feel that a shade rested on the providence of the 
All-Perfect, which it would be a most welcome 
relief to be able entirely to clear away. 

But no amount of good — not an eternity of phy- 
sical or moral good to myriads of beings — could 
compensate moral evil, could justify its existence. 
It is unrighteousness, falsehood, essential wrong, 
violation of the dictates of conscience and of reason. 
Be its amount what it may, be it ever so minute, 
ever so trivial, as we might speak, Eternal Eight, 
and Eternal Eeason cry out against it, declare that 

[184] 



MORAL EVIL INFINITELY HATEFUL. 185 

it must not, sliall not be, tliat nothing can ever 
justify it, that it is only and wholly and unchange- 
ably Avrong. Every mind in harmony A\dth con- 
science and reason abhors it, can do no other than 
abhor it utterly. Whatever consequences it may be 
possible to produce from it, it must not be : the very 
suggestion of consequence is an atrocious offence, as 
if this were a thing that could admit of being 
calculated. Evil, moral evil is moral evil still, if it 
should lead to ever so great good (though this 
indeed is impossible ; an absurdity, a contradiction 
of the grossest kind) and is only to be resisted and 
detested ; no vindication of it, on any ground, can 
be listened to for a moment; it must not he. 

Do we then hesitate to form and pronounce an 
opinion, how ^^ The Uncreated," The necessary 
Guardian of Eectitude and Truth, in whose nature 
the reigning laws of the moral universe have their 
foundation, of whose essence they are the Eternal 
modes — how He must regard the remotest approach 
to what is morally wrong ? Be the difficulties what 
they may, on other sides, be they for ever insoluble, 
there is no difficulty liei^e^ and there must be no 
hesitation. Wherever, whenever moral evil arose, 
even in the minutest conceivable form. The Supreme 
must have been Infinitely opposed to it: Eeason, 



186 



THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



Conscience, Inclination, Will in Him, The entire 
Divine nature, must have been Infinitely opposed to 
it. It is of His very Essence to be opposed to what 
is essentially wrong: we alter, we destroy his 
essence, if we suppose any thing else. There cannot 
be two wills in Him: His nature cannot be divided 
against itself, so as in one aspect of it to be opposed, 
and in another inclined, to wrong. If, for any 
reason, we imagine any thing but unchangeable 
abhorrence of evil in the Divine mind, any secret 
disposition to its introduction, on account of certain 
prospective results, there is then no trust for 
creatures ever more ; there is no God ; the Infinitely 
Pure, the foundation of immutable virtue, the object 
of unmixed veneration, is gone. Creatures, in per- 
petrating crime — injustice, falsehood, impurity, 
cruelty — are carrying out, in however indirect a 
sense, the secret inclination or intimation of their 
Maker ; at least, they are not altogether and only 
opposing him. There is thenceforth no sin to them. 
What is done by Him, in his sphere, it cannot be 
criminal for them to do in their sphere. If He be 
not wholly disinclined to what is morally wrong, if 
it be possible for him, on any ground, to allow it, 
they also may calculate consequences and allow evil, 
that good may come. 



LANGUAGE OF EARLIER THEOLOGY. 187 

One recoils witli unmingled horror from tlie lan- 
guage often employed on this subject by an earlier 
theology, the bane of which (as of much that is even 
yet current) it is not difficult to perceive was a false 
philosophy, a vicious dialectic. ^'If it be objected," 
says Soame Jenyns,* ^' that this makes God the author 
of sin, I answer, God is, and must be, the author of 
everything ; and to say that anything is, or happens, 
independently of the first cause, is to say that some- 
thing exists or happens without any cause at all . . . 
If misery brings with it its utility, why may not 
wickedness ? 

^ If storms and earthquakes break not Heaven's design, 
Why then a Borgia or a Cataline V 

Wherefore it ought always to be considered that, 
though sin in us, who see no farther than the evils it 
produces, is Evil, and justly punished, yet in God, 
who sees the causes and connections of all things, 
and the necessity of its admission, that admission is 
no evil at all, and that necessity a sufficient vindi- 
cation of his goodness." Even Jonathan Edwards be- 
trayed by a love of metaphysical subtlety, shall say,f 
*' There is no inconsistency in supposing that God 

* Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil. Letter 4th, 
London, 1757. 

t Freedom of the Will, Part lY. section 9. London, 1818. 



188 THE MYSTEEY, ETC. 

may liate a thing, as it is in itself and considered as 
evil, and yet that it may be His will that it should 
come to pass, considering all consequences. I be- 
lieve there is no person of good understanding who 
will venture to say, he is certain that it is impossible 
it should be best, taking in the whole compass and 
extent of existence, and all consequences in the 
endless series of events, that there should be such a 
thing as moral evil in the world. And if so, it will 
certainly follow that an infinitely wise being, who 
always chooses what is best, must choose that there 
should he such a thing ; and if so, then such a choice 
is not an evil, but a wise and holy choice ; and if so, 
then providence, which is agreeable to such a choice, 
is a wise and holy providence. Men do will sin, as 
sin, and so are the authors and actors of it ; they 
love it as sin, and for evil ends and purposes. God 
does not will sin as sin, or for the sake of anything 
evil ; though it be Ms pleasure so to order things that, 
He permitting, sin will come to pass, for the sake of 
the great good, that by his disposal shall be the con- 
sequence. His willing to order things so that evil 
shall come to pass, for the sake of the contrary good, 
is no argument that he does not hate evil as evil." 
It amounts to this : the Most High, in effect, wills 
crime to be perpetrated; this is his pleasure; for the 



JONATHAN EDWARDS. 189 

sake of a great good, lie chooses that there shall be 
such a thing. The words are tremendously dis- 
honouring to the Ever Blessed Being, are blasphe- 
mously false. Instead of ^^not venturing to say, that 
it is impossible that the existence of moral evil 
should be the best for the universe on the whole," 
we deem it impious to venture to say anything else. 
The most vital and fundamental of all truths is this, 
that it is of the nature of God to be opposed, not 
officially and rectorally but in the deepest depths 
of his Being, to moral wrong ; that in His mind no 
amount of good could justify the slightest departure, 
even for an instant, from Eternal and Immutable 
rectitude, purity, and truth, and that the contem- 
plation of such a departure by the Great Being, 
with anything but unmixed abhorrence, would in- 
volve a destruction of His "Very Essence. That the 
Only Holy One should will, decree the introduction 
of crime, of violence to Conscience and Eeason, 
truth and right ; that he should choose it as on the 
whole best; that he should QYen permit it, in the 
sense which this word is intended to convey ; that 
at the moment when it in fact entered the universe, 
although he could have prevented it, he should have 
withdrawn himself, and, for. the sake of some pros- 
pective good, have suffered it to enter; so that 



190 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

altogetlier while lie did notHng actively, he yet did 
everything indirectly ; and on the whole evinced 
that the issue was not contrary to his will. By 
whatever reasonings such positions are upheld, they 
are inexpressibly horrible, they destroy the foun- 
dation and the soul of virtue, and they are fatal to 
the honour, the moral character, and the very being 
of the Most High. They must be false, else there 
is no Virtue in the universe, and no Eternal Being 
whom creatures can worship and love. The clearest, 
most compact, and best constructed arguments can 
have no weight, no force here: we may be quite 
unable to detect and expose their fallacy, but they 
must be unsound. This at least is true, if there be 
no other truth in the Universe, — ^the Holy One was, 
is, ever will, ever must be. Infinitely opposed to 
crime. 

How then could this accursed thing be introduced 
into the Universe? That is the awful question. 
Perhaps one earlier and even profounder stands in 
' no remote connection with this, and demands to be 
first answered. Wherefore did a Universe exist at 
all ? Why did The Infinite Being put forth creative 
power? Had there been no creation, there had then 
been no moral evil. The Unconditioned, The Ab- 
solute, existed Alone, a Plenitude, not a Vacuity, an 



CREATION INCOMPREHENSIBLE. 191 

Infinite Plenitude ; a Consciousness, an Activity, a 
Capacity and a Fountain of Blessedness, Infinitely 
Self-sufiicient. This was the Eternal Fact. But it 
is not now the only fact. Being is no longer a 
Unity. The One still is, unchanged and unchange- 
able. But there are also, The Many. Wherefore 
this new fact? What is the final Cause of the 
Creation ? 

The transition, from the Unconditioned to the con- 
ditioned, is incomprehensible by the human intellect. 
What creation is, how it was possible, and how it 
became a realised fact, are incomprehensible ; it is 
confessed on all hands that they are absolutely 
incomprehensible. Shall we then imagine, that, 
though we be thus ignorant of the nature and the 
mode of this stupendous fact, we may nevertheless un- 
derstand its primitive ground, its reason and motive ? 
Shall we think to unveil the Infinite Soul at that 
moment when, according to our own conceptions, the 
Eternal Uniformity was interrupted, and when a 
new mode of being, absolutely unintelligible to us, 
was first introduced ? Shall we think to grasp all 
the views which were present to that Soul, extending 
from the unbeginning past to the unending future . 
think to fathom all its purposes and to analyse all its 



192 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

motives? If anywhere, we must here resolutely 
repel everything like dogmatical interpretation; what- 
ever is put forth, must be put forth only as conjec- 
tural, at all events partial, belonging far more to 
the surface than to the depths of the subject. 

^' God can have no higher end in anything than 
himself," — so it has been often, epigrammatically and 
with much confidence, asserted. The aphorism is 
true in itself, but it is in great part inapplicable here, 
and, misapplied, it becomes an atrocious calumny on 
the Great Being. In the noblest sphere of activity, to 
have no end, is higher than to have the highest end. 
To uphold rectitude and truth, for the sake of the 
advantage which may result from them, is not to be 
virtuous. A just man is just no longer, when it is 
ascertained that his governing motive has been to 
secure the good that follows from a course of justice ; 
he is prudent, but not virtuous. Yirtue must be 
loved for its own sake, and obeyed, because it is 
loved. Wisdom necessarily contemplates ends, and 
is determined by their elevation and their fitness ; 
but virtue is its own end, and, as virtue^ is destroyed 
by the entertainment, at the moment, of any end be- 
sides. Moral excellence of every kind finds its highest 
reason in itself alone, and no longer exists, so far as 



NO END, HIGHER THAN HIGHEST END. 193 

its motive rests on any other basis. And this is pre- 
eminently true of the excellence of Love. A gene- 
rous, benevolent being, is one that acts, first of all, 
from internal impulse. Why does such a being 
seek the good of others, even sacrifice himself for 
their sake ? No primitive reason can be assigned ex- 
cept the pure force of the principle of Love ; you 
cannot account for it on the ground of mere wisdom, 
mere prudence ; if it could be so interpreted, it would 
then cease to be what it is. He has, originally, no 
end in view ; if he had, the essential character of his 
act would that moment be changed ; a generous, lov- 
ing nature, an internal force to which he freely yields, 
impels him ; this is the utmost that can be said. 

AYith all possible emphasis, therefore, we repeat, 
that in the noblest sphere of activity, to have no end 
is higher than to have the highest end. The moral, 
which finds its reason in itself alone, is far above the 
merely intellectual, which contemplates ends and 
calculates consequences. The Infinitely Wise Being 
beholds every object in its entire nature, relations, 
and consequences, and, in the exercise of his wisdom, 
pursues the noblest and loftiest ends ; but we rise to 
a loftier elevation still, when we conceive of the 
Uncreated Nature, glowing with Eectitude, Purity, 
Truth, loving them for their own sake, and in- 
9 



194 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

fluenced not by the calculations of wisdom, but by 
tbe internal force of these principles themselves ; and 
yet loftier still, when, in that Nature, we conceive 
of pure benevolence and generosity, welling up from 
the Infinite depths, and gushing forth in resistless 
energy to bless. If we could account for this, ex- 
cept by itself, if we could find an end, even the 
highest end, and thereby show that it was not 
purely and perfectly spontaneous, we should destroy 
all its worth as Love, and essentially alter its 
character. 

The Grlory of The Highest is eternally secure, in 
any case ; everything that He does must inevitably 
reveal what he is, and commend him to the venera- 
tion and love of his creatures ; but it is not glori- 
fying, but dishonouring, to Him, to imagine that he 
must have an ulterior end in everything, and es- 
pecially that that end must be himself In all the 
outgoings of his moral nature, the end, the motive 
force, lies in the Moral Principles themselves. In all 
the overflowings of his Benevolence, he can have no 
end which is not contained in this pellucid fountain. 
He loves. Why? Wherefore? Because he loves, 
because this is his very essence, because his nature 
is an infinitely loving nature, and finds its delight in 
producing happiness^ not in the low and limited 



NECESSITY OF CREATIOlSr. 195 

sense in wliicli we often speak, but in the sense of 
real blessedness, the blessedness connected with ex- 
alted intellectual and moral excellence. Were he 
acting originally with a view to an end, and that end 
himself, he could no longer be Love. He might be 
wise and he might be just, promoting also the highest 
good of his creatures, but he would no longer be the 
being of pure, disinterested, unquenchable Love. 

Is it unreasonable to conjecture that, perhaps here, 
a hint towards the solution of the problem of Crea- 
tion may be found. Yery far short is this, from a 
complete and all-inclusive interpretation. The 
problem, in its entireness, is necessarily insoluble. 
But, as a conjectural and at least partial exposition, 
this may not be inadmissible ; it may not in itself be 
unnatural, not unsuited to human modes of thinking, 
not contradictory to other established principles; 
perhaps it may even possess more of verisimilitude, 
and afford greater satisfaction, securer rest to con- 
science and reason, than other suggestions for a like 
purpose. The idea of a necessity of Creation, 
broadly and baldly asserted, appears at first sight, 
incompatible with the freedom of the Almighty 
Creator. In the very fact, indeed, of Creation, it is 
involved that it seemed good to Infinite Eectitude, 
Wisdom, and Goodness, and that which seemed good 



196 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

to Infinite Perfection, we may venture to think it 
was morally impossible but the Almighty must 
bring to pass, for the contrary would involve a 
defect, a fault in His jSTature. But when this kind 
of reasoning is extended, and when, in such language 
as that of M. Cousin, it is asserted, that '^ God, if 
he be a cause, can create, and if he be an absolute 
cause, cannot hut create, his eminent charac- 
teristic being an absolute creative force, which can- 
not but pass into action, it follows, not that creation 
is possible, but that it is necessary,""^ we feel in- 
stinctively that the limits of reverent and difl&dent 
speculation have been transgressed. We may be 
unable to detect a single flaw in the reasoning ; it is 
even quite possible that it may be essentially sound; 
but that which it brings out we are so little able to 
comprehend, and especially so little able to reconcile 
with established truths, that no practical use can be 
made of it, and it is more modest, if not more wise, 
to stop shot of it. 



"^ Cours de Philosophie, Paris, 1828, Y"^^ Legon : " Dieu, s'il 
est une cause, peut creer et s'il est une cause absolue, il ne peut 

pas, ne pas creer Son . caractere eminent etant une 

force creatrioe absolue, qui ne peut pas ne pas passer a Facte 
11 suit, non que la creation est possible mais qu'elie est ne- 
cessaira'' 



KESISTLESS, CREATIVE LOVINGNESS. 197 

Perhaps tlie same difficulties, in equal force, do 
not bear against the suggestion which has been 
hazarded — that the final cause of the creation, at 
once the impelling force in the act and its end, was 
the Irrepressible Lovingness of the Divine Nature. 
In that nature, Love can never be at variance with 
Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Eectitude, or with any 
of the Divine Perfections, but must ever be illus- 
trative of them all. ^^ The Uncreated," in all the 
movements of His Being, is a Harmony, A Unity ; 
each Attribute in its manifestation is under the law 
of all the rest. But we may lawfully conceive now 
one and now another as specially put forth : and, 
therefore, we presume to imagine, that in that stu- 
pendous change, which was witnessed when Creation 
sprang forth, the reigning Power was Benevolence. 
If there be a Necessity of Creation at all, does it 
not seem most befitting, to picture only the necessity 
arising from an Infinitely Loving Nature? For 
ever and ever, gushed up with mighty force the 
Infinite Desire to produce spiritual blessedness and 
glory ; welling from beneath, irrepressibly, irresist- 
ibly, it must flow forth, it must find vent for itself. 
It did. God spake. Ineffable, Irrepressible Love 
spake, and Creation was. 

Here, perhaps, a feeble hint is suggested, which. 



198 THE MYSTEEY, ETC. 

may leave tlie awful subject a little less dark than 
before. Creative power has been put forth — the 
Universe exists. To our conceptions, the Necessity 
for this must be laid in the highest grounds of Eec- 
titude and wisdom — ^perhaps highest of all, in the 
energy of Uncreated Benevolence. Had there been 
no creation, there could have been no moral evil. 
But to our conceptions, necessity there must have 
been, that a Creation should exist, else it had never 
existed, necessity in some sense, on some grounds, 
though we can never hope thoroughly to penetrate 
them. With greatest peace of mind, we Ml back 
on the necessity of an Infinite and overflowing love, 
a quenchless desire to fill immensity with all pos- 
sible forms of purity and joy. Here we shall rest ; 
there must have been and could not but have been 
a Creation. 

But a wider question arises, when this first has 
been resolved. Why is the creation such as actually 
exists? Had there been only a Universe of Matter, 
the introduction of moral evil would have been not 
less impossible, than had there been no creation at all. 
There is no crime in material nature ; it is guilty of 
no resistance to Conscience and Eeason, to God- 
properly speaking, there is no evil. The storm in its 
ravages, the ocean in its fury, the volcano, the earth- 



MATERIAL AND ANIMAL CREATION. 199 

quake, the tliunder bursting in terrific peals, like a 
preternatural artillery, the lightning in its sudden 
flash, its extended blaze, its forked darts, or its 
gleaming tortuous stream — these and all such phe- 
nomena are no evils in themselves, not even irregu* 
larities, but exact manifestations of law and order, 
glorious, magnificent revelations of power, of wisdom, 
and of all-embracing harmony. Had animal exist- 
ence been added to mere matter, even then, also, 
crime had been impossible. Perhaps so much can- 
not be said of physical suffering. In the incalculable 
ages prior to man's creation, which geology reveals, 
the same state of things which we now witness 
among the irrational tribes was verified ; a vast and 
successive destruction of animal life took place. 
Living creatures then preyed on one another, and 
were formed with the necessary organs and instincts 
for this purpose. Pain and death were then realised 
facts, on an immensely extended scale, and through 
vast periods of time. It would be vain to deny that 
this creates some difficulty, when viewed in connec- 
tion with the goodness of the Creator. But when one 
thinks of animal life as altogether dissociated from 
responsibility and futurity, as a short duration, and, 
while it lasts, almost unmingied enjoyment, when, 
besides, one thinks of the absolute necessity of a 



200 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

period to animal existence by one means or other, 
of the decay, dissolution, and death of vegetables, and 
of the short pain of death to animals, the dijB&cnlty 
vanishes away, and requires no elaborate solution. 
We return to the position, that, with a universe peo- 
pled only by irrational animals, moral evil had been 
impossible. The earth might have presented its 
scenes of sublimity, grandeur, and beauty ; land, sea, 
and sky might have been filled with manifold crea- 
tures, of exquisite structure and form, and capable 
of every variety of animal enjoyment ; planets, suns, 
stars, and systems might have revolved in harmoni- 
ous order, and adorned and enriched the mighty con- 
cave. Wherefore, then, we ask, was a universe cre- 
ated in which it was possible for moral evil, with all 
its train of physical evils, to arise ? 

A creation merely material, or even animal, had 
been a continual reflection on the Wisdom of the 
Creator. Manifestations of mere power, mere beauty, 
mere harmony had ever suggested the question, which 
they could not have answered, ^' For what purpose?" 
" To what end ?" Themselves unconscious, ignorant, 
they must have ever required some addition, in order 
to complete their sense, to give them a meaning, and 
without this they must have been an empty parade, 
a purposeless ostentation. Like an unfinished sen- 



MATERIAL AND A:N'IMAL CREATION. 201 

tence, they must ever liave dislionoured him who, 
having spoken so much, had yet not spoken more : 
we must add that Creation, in this case, had been an 
unmitigated selfishness. To enjoy the display of his 
own productive power, to look upon a not exalted 
reflection of himself, in not the highest aspect of His 
Nature, to gTatify himself with the vision from without^ 
and in merely material and sentient forms of that, 
which, in an infinitely higher sense, abode within^ only 
for this The Grreat Being must have put forth his 
creative energy. So far as created mind, affection, 
susceptibility were concerned, immensity had still 
been a solitude. One eye alone there had been to 
take in the sense of beauty and grandeur, one heart 
alone to experience whatever delight was capable of 
being originated from this source, the eye, the heart 
of the Creator himself, and for him and him only, as 
a merely personal gratification, the creation had 
existed. The personal gratification, also, such as it 
was, must have been of a very inferior order. No 
reciprocity, no recognition, no intelligent apprecia- 
tion, no thankfulness, no love ; all thought and all 
feeling had been on the side of the Creator, and this, 
too, without the possibility of the faintest expression 
of his Infinite Love. Life, indeed, which we have 
supposed in the Creation, is itself a thing of joy, and 
9^ 



202 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

in the happy lives of myriads of irrational creatures 
there had been some token of God's goodwill. But 
in so brief an existence as theirs, one too so aimless, 
had there been no other, how poor, how unworthy 
of Infinite Benevolence had the token not been ! 

It appeals to every principle of Eeason, to every 
idea of fitness, to every conception we are able to 
form of verisicmlitude, that if there was to be a Crea- 
tion at all, it must be intelligent and moral. If in 
some sense, on some grounds, wholly or partially 
incomprehensible by us, creation was necessary, this 
at least is plain, that, whatever necessity existed, 
existed for an intelligent, a moral creation. If 
again, as to our modes of conception, it reverently 
seems that the overflowing, irrepressible, Infinite 
Lovingness of the Divine Nature fulfilled any part 
in necessitating Creation, nothing can be more mani- 
fest than that this demanded intelligence and recipro- 
cating affection. There must be beings, intimately 
allied and attached to the Great Being, who should 
not only understand and know and search after their 
Creator, and recognise him in the manifestations he 
should give of himself, but who should be in close 
union with him, should love him, and be blessed in 
loving him, and should be drawn toward him by the 
bond of a relationship, as intimate as could exist 



UNIVERSE INTELLIGENT, MORAL. 203 

between the Infinite and the finite. The awfal, the 
overwhelming idea oi Paternity ^"^ in which there is so 
much that is impenetrable, with only here and there 
a gleam flashing through the darkness, rises to the 
Mind, — the Paternity of God and the childship of 
all souls. It is here, perhaps, that the problem of 
Creation finds what approaches nearest to a Solution. 
The Almighty Parent sends forth created Hkenesses 
of himself, beings rational and moral, bearing thus 
his image, capable of knowing and loving him, and, 
in consequence of their relation, under the most 
solemn responsibility to him, besides being by their 
constitution, within the sphere of the Eternal and 
Immutable Laws of Moral Life. 

One step farther we are prepared and entitled to 
advance. An intelligent moral being, without inward 
power to choose, is not simply an anomaly, it is a pure 
contradiction. We may indeed, to such a being, 
contract the sphere of his outward agency within the 
narrowest possible limits, without affecting his es- 
sential constitution. He may be bound, hand and 
foot, unable to move a limb, to take a step. But 
within^ as perfectly as if all this were reversed, he 
must form his own idea of everything, his own con- 
victions of right or wrong, and must be as conscious 
* " The Christ of History," pp. 131—140. 



204 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



as ever of cTioices, preferences, decisions, unknown 
it may be, to every other creature, and without the 
slightest possibility of control from any other. It is 
impossible to conceive of intelligence and conscience, 
separated from this voluntariness, this uncontrolled 
power of choosing. The one is necessarily involved 
in the other ; and even if it were not, what worth 
should we^ and much more the Infinite One^ attach to 
recognition, affection, moral principles, which were 
not spontaneous, but compulsory or mechanical. In- 
telligent appreciation, spontaneous gratitude, genuine 
unconstrained love, alone are of the slightest moral 
value. All else is pretence, mockery, degradation 
ahke to the receiver and the offerer. 

An intelligent, moral, voluntary, responsible Uni- 
verse was alone possible, according to all human 
modes of judging, alone capable of fulfilling the 
inevitable conditions. Was it then impossible, ab- 
solutely impossible, so to guard and control the 
rational nature as to prevent its falling from integrity ? 
If moral evil be simply the abuse of moral power, 
might not the exercise of this power by man have 
been placed within such conditions and under such 
protections, as to have rendered its abuse impossible? 

We alter the form but not the spirit of such ques- 
tioning when we ask, Is there a limit to the power 



RESPONSIBLE AND VOLUNTARY. 205 

of the Almighty ? Can a creature, Ms ovm creature^ 
successfully withstand Him'? That inscrutable 
mystery, a human will, the power of choosing for 
himself, with which the human being is endowed by 
his Maker, — is this able to resist the Most High ? 
Hath He, in ihi^^ created a faculty, which evfiu he 
cannot compel ? It must be suggested that, even if 
this vjere the case, it would involve no limitation of 
the Divine power. Omnipotence, potence, of what- 
ever kind, finite or infinite, has no relation to the 
action of the will. We might as well doubt the 
force of an argument, because it could not raise a 
weight from the ground, as think to detract from 
physical strength, because it can have no effect on a 
moral principle. In his Almightiness, God could in 
a moment quench the light of reason and of con- 
science, extinguish the Will, annihilate the being. 
But his power over the will, as an active principle, 
cannot be physical, but must be moral, that is to 
say, it can be exerted only through the conscience, 
the understanding, and the affections. The very- 
utmost power which can be exerted through these 
channels must belong to Him ; but the very utmost 
power of this kind, we have already found, cannot 
necessitate a choice. 

On the grounds that have been elsewhere set 



206 ' THE MYSTEEY, ETC. 

forth^, we maintain, that a voluntary, a responsible 
being cannot be compelled or made unconscionsly 
passive, in willing. Such a being may be divested 
of all his inward powers, and of this power of will 
with the others, may be divested of his existence ; 
but the power, the liberty of choosing remaining to 
him, he chooses, that means, he is not necessitated, 
and is not passive, but active. Considerations ad- 
dressed to his understanding, his conscience, his 
affections, his appetites and passions, motives (as we 
speak) of every kind, and in every sort of combina- 
tion, may be brought to bear on him ; but if the 
power of choosing remain, it means that he himself^ 
independently of every other being, shall prefer some 
one out of all the courses offered to him. What he 
ought to choose, on every ground of interest, wisdom, 
and duty, is one question; what he in fact does 
choose, is quite another question ; this rests ulti- 
mately with himself, with himself alone. 

Such is the essential nature of Will ; it is not an 
effect of something preceding it, but itself a beginner, 
a causer of action. Whatever is merely acted upon 
and necessarily obeys the action of something else 
on it, is not Will ; it is an instrument, not an actor. 

* See pp. 114—160. 



NO LIMITATION OF POWER. 207 

But must we therefore conceive, that there is here 
a limitation of the Divine Almightiness ? No think- 
ing person imagines, that it is in any way derogatory 
to the Most High that he cannot effect impossibilities 
— cannot make a square a triangle, or a triangle 
a square. These things do not belong to the sphere 
of power. All that is within its sphere, all the pos- 
sible (the poweraJfe), power can effect: it is no 
limitation of it, that it cannot effect that which is not 
powerable, that to which it has no relation and on 
which it cannot be brought to bear. The eye is not 
weak because it does not hear ; the ear is not weak 
because it does not taste. The necessitation of the 
will from without is an impossibility, a contradiction, 
in the very nature of the thing ; it is destroyed, it 
no longer exists, if it be necessitated. No limitation, 
therefore, of the power of God is involved in the fact 
that even He cannot necessitate the will ; for He 
himself has so constituted it that it does not admit 
of being necessitated. 

Man is able, in the sense which has been ex- 
plained, to resist his Maker. Independently of rea- 
soning altogether, the facts of the moral universe 
bear out this position. Man does, in fact^ resist, 
violate, trample upon the will of his Maker ; the 
robber, the murderer, the liar, may be taken as 



208 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

Botorions instances. When one treacherously, fu- 
riously, cruelly imbrues his hands in another's life- 
blood, the created will is in direct, and at the 
moment successful, resistance to the Uncreated Will. 
Every act of injustice, of falsehood, of impurity, of 
cruelty, of treachery, which is perpetrated in the 
world, is mere and direct resistance to the Divine 
will, that is, it is resistance to what the Holy One 
approves, loves, wishes, and expressly commands. 
If this were in any sense, to any extent, not the 
case, if the Divine Moral NaturC; if Eeason, In- 
clination, Will, in the Most High, were not alto- 
gether opposed to any act, either it would cease 
to be moral evil, or God would cease to be God. 
All in the universe, which we distinguish as moral 
evil, has this essential characteristic, that it is mere, 
and direct, and for the time, successful resistance 
to the Infinite Will. 

Could this characteristic, then, have been wanting 
or less deeply marked, when, for the first time^ 
crime was introduced into the universe? Unde- 
niably it could not. Whensoever that moment 
was, whatever was the particular act, howsoever it 
came about, crime was perpetrated ; that is, an act 
of the created will was perpetrated, in direct oppo- 
sition to the Divine will, and in opposition, at the 



GOD BLASPHEMED. 209 

same time, to Eternal rectitude, purity, trutli, or 
love. A created being, then, introduced into the 
uniyerse a thing which the Creator abhorred. The 
constitution of the being was such that it was possible 
for him to do this, and he did it ; and moral evil, that 
is, the voluntary abuse of moral power, for the first 
time became a monstrous fact in the universe. The 
Almighty could, in an instant, have crushed the 
power which he had conferred, in an instant, have 
destroyed the guilty being ; but moral power con- 
tinuing (that is, intelligent, moral, voluntary beings 
existing), he could not, from the very necessity of 
its nature, have prevented its abuse. 

There is something unutterably revolting, in the 
only other possible supposition on this subject, which 
we scarcely dare to clothe in words. At the mo- 
ment when crime was introduced into the universe, 
the Great Being might have prevented it, and he 
purposely did not prevent it. If the suggestions 
which we have hazarded seem to any to involve, 
though they really do not, a limitation of Divine 
power ^ here^ at least, there is palpably involved, not a 
limitation, but a direct impeachment of the Divine 
Goodness^ and of the entire Moral Character of the 
Infinite One. That which I can^ but do not prevent, 



210 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

if it lie within my sphere, is as really attributable to 
me as if it were my positive, personal act. I may 
as truly be the cause of an effect, by not doing what 
I could have done to prevent it, as by actually pro- 
ducing it. Is it insinuated, that although the Great 
Being might and could have prevented the entrance 
of evil, yet he was under no obligation to exert his 
power for this end, but in perfect rectitude suffered 
the evil to be introduced ? Eeverently, must that 
word obligation be connected with the Supreme, by 
creatures, all whose views are so imperfect and so 
shortsighted as ours are. But, with profound reve- 
rence we may ask, had the minds he formed, had 
his own offspring, no claim to protection from their 
Almighty Father ? Had the transcendent interests 
of Eternal Eectitude and Truth no claim on the 
Holy One ? Could He suffer these interests to be 
endangered, to be even permanently injured, while 
by the exercise of his power they might have been 
saved ? It is impossible ! It is impossible ! What- 
ever conjecture on this awful subject we may hazard, 
this, at least, is to be abhorred, before it can be 
admitted by any mind, it must be completely for- 
gotten, that the slightest moral evil outweighs an 
Eternity of prospective good, moral or physical. 



CRIME INPREVENTIBLE. 211 

Moral evil is only the dishonour, the ruin, the per- 
dition of the universe. In itself it is essentially and 
only dishonour and perdition. It can produce no thing 
but ruin. The ruin may be modified, may even be 
turned to the aid of good in other directions. But 
itself is merely ruin, and all that it produces is 
merely ruin. It must be forgotten, besides, that 
moral evil, ^. e. injustice, impurity, falsehood, or 
whatever other name it takes, is the thing which the 
Holy One abhors, not which he professes to abhor, 
which he is said to abhor, but which he really, and 
only, and Infinitely abhors. And did He^ for any 
cause^ on any ground^ suffer that to enter, to which 
Eeason, Conscience, Truth, and Love are eternally 
opposed ? If He only suffered the entrance of crime, 
while he could have and might have prevented it, 
then is he really, though indirectly, its author, and 
not this only, but all the moral and physical evil of 
which that first crime was the inlet and the fountain, 
must be referred back to Him. No. No. No. The 
entrance of crime, in other words, the abuse of moral 
power, in other words, the rebellion of the created 
will, must have been impreventible, else it had been 
prevented. All that was possible to be done must 
have been done ; but to prevent the abuse of moral 



212 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

power, tliat is, to necessitate the created will, was 
an impossibility."^ 

Bnt, preventible or inpreventible, at least the 
Great Being must have foreseen the introduction of 
evil into the universe, and with this distinct fore- 
sight he put forth his Creative Power. 

There is a wide distinction between foreknowledge 
and predetermination. A predetermination is the 
antecedent of an event. A foreknowledge is only a 
logical consequent of it. Predetermination creates^ 
causes the event. Foreknowledge is logically created, 
caused by the event. An event is certain, just he- 
cause it is predetermined. It can be foreknown, only 
because it is certain. The foreknowledge has nothing 
to do with the production of the event, in any pos- 
sible way. In the very nature of the thing, the event 
must first be seen to be certain on wholly inde- 
pendent grounds and only as thus otherwise certain, 

* I ought to be ashamed to confess that I have never read 
the elaborate work of Julius Miiller, " Die Christliche Lehre 
von der Siinde.^' A very masterly and scholarly criticism of 
it, which appeared some years ago in the " Xorth British Ee- 
view," now lies before me. From this, I am disposed to ima- 
gine that there is some affinity, in what is here presented, to 
the views of that distinguished Continental theologian. If this 
be so, it cannot but be singularly gratifying to me. The coin- 
cidence is undesigned, altogether unconscious. 



i 



FOREKNOWLEDGE AND PREDETERMINrATIOX. 213 

can it be foreknown. The foreknowledge of God 
does not make human actions therefore certain^ but 
it is their certainty in themselves which makes his 
foreknowledge even possible. 

But he must have foreseen the introduction of 
crime, and yet he gave being to the Universe. That 
is the difficulty and this is the fact, undenied and 
undeniable by all who believe in the Divine existence 
and have any consistent conception of the Di^nne 
attributes. It bears with no peculiar force on any 
one view of moral pro\ddence that may be taken, but 
T^'ith equal force, on all. Unless we can imagine, 
that moral evil took the Omniscient by surprise, was 
an emergency unanticipated by Him and for which 
He was not prepared — and this is so revolting, so 
blaspheraous, that only the insanity of impiety could 
entertain it — unless we could imagine this, it is im- 
possible to deny, that the certainty of Moral Evil 
must have been fully before the eye of the Creator 
when he put forth his creative energy. 

We repeat that Foreknowledge is not predetermi- 
nation. A Divine predetermination^ had there been 
such a thing, would have been the true and proper 
cause of sin, whensoever it became an actual fact in 
the universe. The Great Being in this case might 
not himself by his own direct agency produce evil, 



214 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

but, haying decreed its existence, exist it must at the 
appointed time. This is not all, for in determining 
the end, it is necessarily involved, that he had also 
determined the means, by which it should be effected. 
In other words, he had deliberately arranged and 
planned the course of providence in such a way that 
^ crime must arise, and that all that mass of moral and 
physical evils, which have desolated and polluted 
creation, must come into being. Some of the wisest 
and best of men have deliberately subscribed to this 
blasphemy. ^*If by the author of sin," says Presi- 
dent Edwards, " be meant the permitter or not hin- 
derer of sin, and at the same time, the disposer of 
a state of events in such a manner^ for wise, holy, and 
most excellent ends and purposes, that sin (if it be 
permitted or not hindered) will most certainly and 
infallibly follow ; I say, if this be all that is meant 
by being the author of sin, I do not deny that God 
is the author of sin (though I dislike and reject the 
phrase, as that which by use and custom is apt to 
carry another sense) ; it is no reproach for the Most 
High to be thus the author of sin."*^ 

Limit in conception, if that must Je, the mere 
Power, the physical resources of the Great Being, 

* " Enquiry into the Freedom of the Will," Part lY . Sec. 9. 



MAN, AUTHOR OF SIN. 215 

but, by all that is venerable and all that is terrible, 
limit not his Purity, his Sincerity, his Goodness, his 
Moral Character ! With a degree of horror which it 
is not possible to express, we are constrained to cry 
out, ^^ Anything rather than this," even downright 
Fatalism! This has all the inherent enormity of 
fatalism, with a dash of disingenuousness and mean- 
ness, which renders it unutterably detestable. That 
on the one hand God should Infinitely abhor crime, 
and that on the other hand crime should nevertheless 
arise in his universe, that a created Will (as will) 
should be unconquerable, even by the Supreme ; that 
man should be capable of effectually resisting his 
Maker, and of causing that to which his Maker is 
unalterably opposed, is a profound, an inscrutable 
mystery ; but that God should be the author of sin, 
directly or indirectly, is no mystery, but a foul blas- 
phemy. Moral evil cannot be explained ; if it could, 
it would cease to be what it is. It is altogether an 
anomaly in the universe. There is no law into which 
it can be resolved, for it is a violation of all law. It 
can be accounted for on no principle, for it is in the 
face of every principle. An interpretation of it — a 
rational, intelligible interpretation of it — ^is neces- 
sarily impossible, for it is a violent outrage to Con- 



216 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



^ 



science, Eeason, Gratitude, and Love. The fact is 
palpable enough, but the ground of it is far deeper 
than the reach of our power of vision. 

This much only we know, the Great God created 
natures like to his own, the offspring of a Divine Pa- 
rentage, endowed them with the highest capacities, 
and acted upon them by the mightiest influences, but 
thereafter left it in their own power to determine their 
course. Impenetrable darkness hangs over the issue of 
this divine arrangement : the sons of God revolted 
from their Almighty Father, abused their moral 
power, and chose evil. "Without consent or suffer- 
ance of his, in opposition to his nature, his will, and 
his express command, Infinitely in opposition to him, 
they chose evil. He did not passively suffer it to be 
so, when he could and might have prevented it; He 
was not secretly reconciled to it, because of the pro- 
spective good to which it might lead; above all, 
there was no plan of his in which it was a necessary 
part ; on the contrary, the abuse of moral power by 
creatures in the sight of the Creator was evil, only 
evil, and the fountain of inconceivable and endless 
evil which, had it been preventible, must have been 
prevented ; He did not wink at it as an indirect, 
ultimate good, far less take advantage of it in 



SIN INFINITELY ABHORRED. 217 

order to carry forward his own purposes ; He only 
hated it, in every view, on every ground, he could 
only and infinitely hate it. In mere, direct resist- 
ance to Him, from the perversion of the human will, 
crime arose. The first sin — ^like all sin, whereso- 
ever, whensoever, howsoever happening — the first 
sin was Infinitely abhorred by Him. All his love to 
his own offspring, and all his love to Eternal and 
Immutable Eight and Truth, render it certain that 
every possible means for its prevention must have 
been put forth. He can be connected with nothing 
but good, tmmixed, highest good ; all that He does 
must be perfectly, purely good, and if evil arise, it 
can be from no defect in his workmanship, which by 
any possibility could have been remedied. He can 
give only a destiny of Good, and that which he forms 
must in every part be fitted only to secure a destiny 
of Good, without the omission of any possible thing 
by which that destiny could be secured. Evil, there- 
fore, whether as foreseen or as seen by the Almighty, 
can have been foreseen and seen only to be hated, to 
be resisted by all possible means, to be put down.- 

The Eternal fact did not become a falsehood in 
Time. From Eternity God's relation to crime, as a 
conception and a possibility, was summed up in one 
10 



218 THE MYSTEEY, ETC. 

word — abliorrence. When it became a reality, Ms 
entire relation to it, not less but almost more than 
before, must have been summed up in one word — ab- 
horrence. At all hazards, and in spite of all that may 
seem to be at variance with them, the Infinite Purity, 
the Transparent, Perfect Sincerity, and the overflow- 
ing Lovingness of the Uncreated One must be up- 
held ; they are fundamental and paramount. What- 
ever be doubtful, nothing must be admitted for a 
moment which, even by implication in the remotest 
possible degree, reflects upon them. We are pre- 
pared to sacrifice anything and everything else, to 
hold anything and everything else as uncertain, but 
these, in all their integrity, must be preserved with- 
out taint, without suspicion. 

All Good from God, and nothing but Good from 
God ! All Evil only and wholly from the creature! 
Whatever be dark, we must maintain that this is 
light, and sheds its illumination on the course of 
Divine Providence. That Providence in relation to 
crime can have had no end but one, the introduction 
of all possible instrumentahties and influences cal- 
culated to prevent it, to diminish its amount, and to 
retrieve in the highest possible degree its effects. 

The diffusive, overflowing, irrepressible, Loving- 



LOYIKGNESS OF GOD. 219 

ness of God, ever in harmony with. Infinite Eecti- 
tude, Wisdom, and Truth, the intense, nnqnencha- 
ble, universal Desire of the Divine Mind to produce 
blessedness, which found vent for itself in creation, 
has now its appropriate organ in Almighty Provi- 
dence, — an organ for bringing forth the largest 
possible amount of good with the smallest possible 
admixture of evil, and for filling the Universe with 
pure and permanent glory. 



SECTION V. 

PHYSICAL EVIL, THE NECESSARY EF- 
FECT, BUT ALSO THE DIVINE COR- 
RECTIVE OF MORAL EVIL, 

Crime its own Punishment — Necessarily Physical — Affect- 
ing Susceptibilities, Structure, Being of Soul — Not Or- 
dination OF God — Physical Evils strictly so called — 
I. Connection, Mind and Body — Animal Structure — Pain, 
ETC., etc., etc. — n» Hereditary, Eepresentationary Con- 
stitution OF Human Eace — Extension, Propagation op 
Suffering — Forms, Degrees, Distribution of Physical 
Evil, of God — Their End, Highest Moral Good — Suf- 
fering, Instrument wherewith to destroy Sin. 



C&U 



SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 

'^WROisra, Crime, is its own pTinisliment;" apart 
from the agency of the Great Being altogether, it 
inevitably punishes itself. It is pain in the mind ; 
and only when it has succeeded, and so far as it has 
succeeded, in deadening and depraving the suscepti- 
bihties, does it cease to be pain, — that is, physical evil. 
A bad passion (the very word in this application is 
significant), jealousy, revenge, anger, lust, is a sen- 
sation^ not less than an emotion — a painfal sensation 
in the mind. Moral evil literally wounds and hurts 
the soul ; it is resistance offered to the understand- 
ing, the conscience, and the heart, and creates suf- 
fering more or less acute. But this is no ordination, 
no doing of God; it lies in the nature of things. 
To revolt against right thinking and right feeling is 
in itself, and owing to the essential constitution of a 
responsible being, an offence, a wound to the mind 
— ^to the conscience especially, the most susceptible 
and tender part of the spiritual nature, the part also 
which is most deeply touched. It belongs to this 
power to accuse, convict, and condemn; and the 
being who has oftended against it suffers in pro- 

C222] 



REMORSE AND FEAR. 228 

portion to the amount of his offence, were there none 
but himself to observe and to judge. He disap- 
proves, perhaps despises, perhaps abhors himself; 
and self-condemnation, self-contempt, self-abhor- 
rence, are real suffering. Connected with this is 
the thought, that there is another eye besides ours 
which looks upon crime, and another authority be- 
sides that within our breast, one whose verdict is 
impartial and unerring. 

A mind conscious of crime is the abode and the 
source of dark fears — well or ill-founded is not here 
the question. These fears are not owing to any 
decree or agency of Heaven, but arise from the 
constitution of moral being ; they are not injected or 
suggested from without, but are altogether reflec- 
tions and conclusions from within. Eemorse on the 
one hand, and dread of Judgment to come on the 
other hand, constitute a kind of suffering which is 
inevitably consequent on wrong. In the case of 
great conscious crime, remorse becomes insupport- 
able. The thought is excruciating, that for what 
we suffer, or have caused others to suffer, we are 
alone to blame : that we might have, could have, 
ought to have obeyed conscience and reason, but 
would not. 

But moral evil not only affects the susceptibilities 



224 

and the emotional nature, it touclies and injures the 
very structure of the soul : in any case it involves 
a derangement of the moral constitution. The law 
of that constitution, as essential and universal within 
its sphere as the law of gravitation is in the material 
universe, must have been overthrown for the time ; 
the moving power of the soul must have acted falsely ; 
the will must have revolted from its ordained, con- 
stitutional guides, — Eectitude, Truth, and Love. 
Moral life is entirely grounded in these principles, 
and entirely dependent upon them. In order to its 
very being, as a constituted existence, it must be in 
harmony with them. We have already found, that 
in departing from them, the soul necessarily, to the 
extent of the departure, loses being, and injures 
that which forms its very essence."^ But this is not 
a punishment Divinely arranged in order to correct 
evil ; it lies in the nature of things. The slightest 
departure from the eternal laws of moral being 
inevitably affects moral life. The Almighty did not 
appoint this and could not change it. Sin in itself is 
death. Disease, affecting a vital part of the body, is 
in itself death begun ; unless counteracted, it neces- 
sarily extends, and must lead to total death. It may 

* See pp. 163-14. 



SIN IS DEATH. 225 

be counteracted ; but in itself it is a dying, it is 
a begun derangement and dissolution of the animal 
fabric. Moral evil, by a yet more awful internal 
necessity, is destructive. In itself it is perdition, — 
perdition begun. There is no Moral Pathology by 
the aid of which we can trace and expose the spread 
of evil in the soul ; but the fact that it spreads is 
sufficiently, terribly apparent. No disease is so in- 
veterate, so difficult of cure, so all but hopelessly 
ineradicable, as that which attacks the soul. The 
first false choice seems to darken the entire inward 
vision, and to pollute and poison all the fountains of 
thought and of emotion. In the case of some particu- 
lar forms of criminal indulgence it is seen at once how 
essentially mental power and mental life are thereby 
impaired. Shocking examples are not wanting, in 
which the intellect is permanently injured, the moral 
perceptions hopelessly obscured, the light of Reason 
and Conscience all but caienched ; in which the 
Mind, the Soul, becom.es almost literally dead, and 
the beings are reduced almost below the level of the 
brute creation. Significantly, we call them moral 
wrecks, lost characters, in which perdition is fast 
accomplishing. 

All this, however, is in no respect connected with 
an actual agency of Heaven ; it is no pre-ordination, 
- 10* 



226 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

but the inevitable nature of things, the necessary 
working out of moral evil itself; and all that the 
Most High, does in connection with it is to resist, 
and to put down that which He abhors. But when, 
in the light of Eeason, we have looked upon perdition 
in this world, the farther question suggests itself, 
Does that light throw no ray, however feeble, beyond 
this world? Immortality is a truth of Eeason. 
What of Evil in its relation to Immortality ? If 
even here we behold so much, what shall it be here- 
after ? In the world beyond the gTave shall there be 
found Perished Minds ! Lost Spirits ! in which intel- 
lect, conscience, soul, have become dead? Immortal 
wrecks ! Fires gone out, that might have glowed 
with undying brightness ! Lights that might have 
sparkled for ever in the glorious firmament, quenched 
in the blackness of everlasting night ? In all the 
horror of this conception, and should it ever be 
realised, at least we are sure that it is no doing of 
the Holy One, no ordination of his, no punishment 
which He has appointed, and which his hand inflicts. 
It lies in the nature of things, and is the proper, 
necessary working out of crime itself; and crime, 
with all its tremendous consequences, is that which 
the Almighty only hates eternally, which He is for 
ever resisting, and which it is the design of every 



PHYSICAL EVIL. 227 

department of his Providence, and of tlie entire plan 
of Providence, to exterminate. 

Physical evil, in other words, suffering, is the 
necessary effect of moral evil, a result, consistent 
indeed with the will of God, but not owing to it 
and arising out of independent grounds. But the 
physical evil, of which we have hitherto spoken, 
terminates on the mind without affecting the body ; 
and the actual constitution and circumstances of 
man, therefore, have yet to be investigated. He 
is a compound being, and the seat of that, which is 
usually understood by physical evil, is his body. Some 
of the forms, in which bodily suffering comes forth, as 
the effect of spiritual wrong, are exceedingly striking. 
In consequence of the mysterious connexion between 
soul and body, mental emotions, whether joyous 
or afflictive, virtuous or vicious, exert an acknow- 
ledged, a universally understood influence on the 
animal system. Anger, revenge, jealousy, envy, are 
not only in themselves and as passions^ painful, but 
they create bodily disorder and suffering. Even 
death is often the sudden result of the violence of 
these emotions. In less extreme cases, they affect 
the functions of the brain, the heart, the liver, 
interfere with the circulations and secretions of the 
body, and produce disease, temporary or permanent. 



228 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

There are certain crimes, wliicli very visibly and 
necessarily affect tlie animal health, impair the con- 
stitution, derange and pollute the whole system, 
lead to decrepitude, premature old age and early 
death, and transmit their physical effects for many 
succeeding generations. And this exhibits a new 
and striking fact in this connection. 

The extension of physical evil beyond the moral 
delinquent himself, is one of the marked features of 
Providence on our earth, and one, whose verifications 
are all but universal. The murderer inflicts the great- 
est of physical evils on a fellow-creature, perhaps on 
many of his fellow-creatures, and in addition to their 
death, he wounds and breaks the hearts of their 
relatives and friends, and injures, perhaps ruins, the 
worldly prospects of many families. The lust of 
money has involved millions in all the horrors of 
slavery, and millions more related to the first, in 
hopeless grief, in poverty, and wretchedness. The 
passions of anger, or pride, or ambition plunge 
nations into all the crimes and sufferings of war. 
The amount of physical evil caused by this tre- 
mendous scourge it is not possible to calculate, or 
even conceive. The myriads brought to an untimely 
grave, and the privations, disappointments, and life- 
long griefs of myriads more, proclaim a reckoning 



PHYSICAL EYIL. 229 

never to be told. But war cannot be alone. Battle- 
fields are the sources of pestilence and plague. They 
pollute the surrounding atmosphere, and disease and 
death, perhaps numbering far more victims than the 
sword, are spread far and near. There wants only 
one grim addition to constitute a monstrous trio. 
War, Pestilence, and Famine are never far separated. 
An unnatural demand for the necessaries of life is 
created, their price is enhanced, at the same time 
that over great extents of country agriculture has 
been necessarily neglected, or perhaps its produce 
wickedly destroyed. The sufferings of the masses 
of the poor become accumulated, and want, with a 
fearful increase of disease, stalks through the land. 

Such aspects of human affairs, — and they might be 
unlimitedly extended, — are inexpressibly appalling, 
but it can hardly fail to strike the least reflecting 
that they exhibit the agency of man, and not the 
agency of The Most High. Physical evil, in all the 
hideous forms that have been described, comes forth 
manifestly and altogether, from the evil passions of 
man's heart ; and with these God has nothing to do, 
for he only forbids, condemns, and abhors them. 
So far as appears, there is no Divine agency, no 
Divine interposition ; but the evil will of men only 
produces its proper effects. The immense proportion 



230 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

of all the sufferings tliat afflict tlie world are visihly 
tlie work of men themselves, the consequence, di- 
rectly or indirectly, of their follies, or their crimes, 
or both. Even the extension of suffering beyond 
the individual evil doer, so far as seems, and so far 
as direct agency is concerned, is attributable to men. 
They, and only they, directly bring it about that the 
innocent are involved in suffering which none but the 
guilty deserve. Parents are the agents in those sins 
which yet descend in their effects on their faultless 
children ; and children, again, by their direct agency 
involve parents in their suffering. In the same social 
relations, in the same civil sphere, in the same locality, 
individuals of the most opposite character are over- 
taken by the same calamity. There are thus wide 
disorder and confusion in the existing condition of 
the world, a complete blending of evil with good, an 
almost indiscriminate diffusion of evil on all sides, 
irrespective of individual character and desert; but 
the direct agency, at least in great part, by which 
this is brought about is even seen to be man's, not 
God's. It is man, not God, we must charge, if the 
state of things be such that no judgment can be 
formed of character from outward position in this 
world, — ^if the truly good be often poor, unknown, 
or heavily afflicted, while those of an opposite 



EVOLUTION OF PHYSICAL EVIL. 231 

character are outwardly prosperous, — and if, at all 
events, while some are outwardly prosperous, others, 
not more undeserving, and in consequence of circum- 
stances over which they have had no control, and 
which were perhaps originated prior to their exist- 
ence, be subject to life-long privations and suffer- 
ings, to wretchedness and want. 

Yet it would be worse than trifling with the most 
awful subject of human thought to attempt to deny 
that there is at the same time a positive, a pervad- 
ing, and a constant Divi/ne agency in the evolution of 
the physical evils of the world. In two diretions, 
chiefly, this is manifest : First, in the structure of 
the human being; Secondly, in that general con- 
stitution under which men, as a distinct order of 
creatures are placed. 

I. It is altogether owing to the Supreme Will 
and ordination, that Man is material as well as 
spiritual, and that his material nature is such as 
it is. 

That in his composite being, in the fact and the 
character of his material organisation, and in its 
connection with his spiritual nature, a large pro- 
portion of the sufferings which he endures find 
their origin, is undeniable. But who ordained, that 



232 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

evil in the soul should affect the animal health and 
life? In the nature of the thing itself, there is no 
reason why a mental passion should produce any 
change in the matter of the body. It is indeed 
a mystery that it should, — a mystery inexplicable. 
Not less mysterious is it that men, through the 
affections of their minds, should not only injure 
their own bodies, and be so constituted that they 
must thus injure their own bodies, but that they 
should also in the same way be able to inflict physi- 
cal sufferings on others. It is perfectly conceivable, 
that the passions of the mind might not have reached 
in their influence beyond the mind, even in the being 
himself, and that none of the animal functions mi2:ht 
have suffered the slightest disturbance. On the other 
hand, it is perfectly conceivable that beings of a com- 
pound nature like men, though capable of morally 
affecting one another, might have had no organs, 
and no instincts, and no means of physically \^l]^lvmg 
each other. That the fact is otherwise, can be traced 
only and wholly to the ordination of the Creator. 
It is his arrangement, his plan with his creatures. 

Whilst, then, an immense proportion of the suffer- 
ings of our world can be traced to the direct agency 
of man himself, it is at the same time not to be con- 



MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL STRUCTURE. 283 

cealed that he is capable of this sort of agency, 
simply because the structure of his being is what it 
is, and of this the Almighty is the sole author. All 
the outward forms in which physical (in the sense of 
material) evil comes forth, are possible, entirely in 
consequence of this structure. The frame of the 
body is a Divine ordination, and the various kinds 
of pain and evil which reach it, depend upon its frame. 
All the laws of the animal system and the range of 
it agency, whether as it respects itself or as it re- 
spects other beings, are of Divine appointment. The 
materials and the mode of its sustenance, its exposure 
also to manifold evils, that it should be open on so 
many sides to the assault of disease, that it should be 
capable of dissolution, and that it should certainly 
die after a limited period, all are simply owing to the 
will and power of God. The privations, the suffer- 
ings, the wants, and the deaths of human beings, 
visibly and directly resulting, perhaps; from their 
own or others' follies or crimes, are yet traceable in 
the last instance to the Almighty, because they arise 
out of that material organisation and that connexion 
between the material and the spiritual, which men 
did not frame for themselves, but which He has esta- 
blished. The last of physical evils, death, and all the 
countless pains and miseries by which it may be 



234 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

preceded, liave their foundation, virtually, in Divine 
appointment. 

II. It is altogether owing to the Supreme will and 
ordination, that the human race is constituted on 
what may be called the successional principle, and 
that the system of our world is a hereditary or repre- 
sentational system. 

Men descend from one another, in successive 
generations, and by the very law of their being 
are mutually and entirely dependent. They are 
first receivers and then conveyers of life and of 
influences, whether good or evil. Each indivdual 
depends inevitably, to a large extent as it respects 
the good of this world, and as it respects even 
moral influences, on his predecessor, his progenitor. 
Each generation, in like manner, is thus largely 
and inevitably dependent on that which preceded 
it. The influence of each individual and of each 
generation tells for good or for evil, not only upon 
his or its immediate successor, but upon all the in- 
dividuals and generations succeeding, to the end of 
time. This is plain matter-of-fact, interpret it how 
we will, or leave it uninterpreted. It is no mere 
theory of theologians, but a solid fact, which none 
can deny, whatever view of moral providence they 
may adopt. By the very constitution of things, the 



HEREDITARY SYSTEM. 235 

closest association among men and the largest mu- 
tual (even moral) dependence are rendered in- 
evitable. 

This is the doing of the Creator, wholly and only 
the doing of the Creator. Without consulting with 
his creatures, without their consent or even know- 
ledge, before their existence, he ordained this here- 
ditary or representational system ; and coming into 
the world, they come, will they or will they not, un- 
der this irrevocable law. The human race might 
have been created at once, and not in successive 
generations. A system of perfect individualism, in- 
stead of one of associated dependence, might have 
been established. Necessarily, and under any con- 
ceivable circumstances, they must have been capable 
of influencing one another, must have been subject 
to each other's influence. But there might have been 
no such inevitable and involuntary dependence as 
now exists. That, owing to the present system of 
the world, the moral destiny of a single human being 
is necessitated^ — in other words, that a single human 
being, not through that evil which is wholly and 
only his OAvn, but solely in consequence of this divine 
constitution is inevitably ruined, — we must utterly 
deny. To prove such a position is perfectly impos- 
sible, and to maintain it is a gratuitous impeachment 



236 

of the Merciful Father. As our race is at present 
constituted, and although external circumstances and 
even moral influences, to a large extent, are indepen- 
dent of our volition, we hold that there is ample foun- 
dation for entire, individual responsibility. Whoever 
loves and chooses the true and the right, has yielded 
to the influence of the Great Spirit of Holiness, and 
whoever sins, knows and feels that he was not com- 
pelled to sin, that he could have, and might have, and 
ought to have acted differently. This constitutes his 
responsibility. 

It would be vain, with our limited faculties and 
sphere of judging, to balance the opposite systems 
indicated by the words individual and hereditary, 
and to decide which is the more just, the more 
favourable to created beings. But it is not diflicult 
to perceive very manifest and vast advantages aris- 
ing from, the intimate relations and dependences of 
the human race, which could not otherwise have been 
secured. A large class of affections, otherwise un- 
known, is hereby originated, affections that form the 
purest joy and the sweetest solace of life, and which 
also exert the mightiest influence on the moral prin- 
ciples and character. Thus, too, lessons which could 
never have been heard, exhibitions of the effect of 
moral evil which could never have been witnessed, 



FAVOURABLE TO CREATURES. 287 

and warnings, and considerations, and motives witli- 
ont nnmber are brought to bear on liuman minds. 
If, on tlie one hand, there be a fearful amount of 
evil influence acting on successive generations, arising 
from the words, the writings, the acts, the character, 
the entire example of individuals, there is *also, on 
the other hand, an incalculable, a far larger amount 
of influence for good, which the world had wanted. 

It is no irrational depth of humility, in beingg such 
as we are, to be persuaded, that a constitution, which 
is of Divine appointment, is not less just, and even 
more favourable to the interests of creatures and to 
the triumph of virtue, than any other which could 
possibly have been established. Little able as we 
are to grasp its entire effects and their numberless 
ramifications, and with so much advantageous which 
even we are able to perceive arising from it, it is no 
extravagant demand on our faith in the Infinite Being, 
to be called upon to trust that a greater amount of 
good, on the whole, shall hereby be secured, than 
could have been secured by any other possible 
means. 

Looking to this constitution of the human race as 
a whole on the one hand, and on tha other to the 
material organisation of human beings and to tha 
connexion between soul and body, and reflecting that 



238 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

tlie actual sufferings of men have their origin entirely 
in these two sources, the conclusion is inevitable, that 
all the existing forms of physical evil in the world 
are directly dispensed by the hand of God. 

Essentially considered, physical evil is no arrange- 
ment, no purpose of his. That it should result from 
moral evil is not owing to his volition, but arises 
necessarily in the nature of things. He did not de- 
cree it ; he could not have prevented it : it is the 
necessary effect of crime. But what is thus true of 
suffering, essentially considered, is distinctly not true 
of the forms in which it comes forth. The Almighty 
undeniably and directly has to do with them. Moral 
evil is altogether and only abomination to Him. He 
cannot approach it, cannot permit it, in any sense, 
cannot even recognise its existence, except for ever 
to resist and repel it. But physical evil belongs to 
an essentially different category. In itself simply, 
it also can be only abhorrent to the merciful nature 
of the Supreme ; but it is not, like moral evil, in all 
aspects and on all grounds, opposed and only opposed 
to the Divine Will. On the contrary, as the neces- 
sary, retributive effect of the deeper curse, it is wholly 
consistent with the nature of things ; and the Eecti- 
tude, the Wisdom, and all the attributes of the Great 
Being accord with it and pronounce it fitting, as it 



GOD AKD PHYSICAL EYIL. 239 

is inevitable. Since then Moral Evil must inevitably- 
lead to physical evil; since physical evil must exist 
in one form or other and in all its intensity, God 
shall employ it, so as even to diminish its amount, 
and, at all events, to pnt down by means of it 
the earlier and more ruthless foe of creation. In 
entire consistency with his nature, he can take 
hold of it ; even his holiness, his wisdom, his very 
love and mercy, demand that he shall take hold 
of it, that he shall directly wield it as an instru- 
ment for effecting the grandest and most god-like 
purpose, — that, indeed, which is the one, all- 
embracing aim of his agency, — the extirpation of 
sin. 

With grateful and glad appreciation we recognise 
the stupendous fact, that all the forms which suffering 
assumes in our world, its times, the directions in 
which it falls, and all its modifications, are the 
undoubted arrangement of the Almighty. Without 
a misgiving and with entire conviction, all contrary 
appearances notwithstanding, that the result must be 
a diminution even of suffering, and certainly a dimi- 
nution of crime, we see and acknowledge that God 
has established that constitution of the human race, 
and that material prganisation of human beings, that 
connexion between soul and body, by means of which 



240 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

the necessary physical effect of crime is modified 
endlessly, witli a view to tlie production of benefi- 
cent, spiritual results. The uses of suffering here 
find their interpretation. Yiews of moral evil, in 
its manifold shapes and its utter hideousness, are 
ceaselessly put before the world : impressions of its 
enormity, not otherwise reached, are created; the 
fears of men are awakened, at the same time that the 
most subduing and softening influences are brought 
to bear upon them ; motives of every kind' are origi- 
nated ; means of trying, of drawing forth, and of 
invigorating virtue are employed : altogether a vast, 
wide-spread, and effective moral machinery is con- 
structed out of the materials which are supplied 
by the endless modifications of suffering. The 
grand end of Moral Providence, of the entire 
agency of the Most High in the affairs of men, 
receives here its development. That end is properly 
one, but it assumes a twofold aspect. It is first to 
correct and retrieve crime, and then to prevent its 
spread. Combining these two, it is to extirpate 
crime, as far as that is possible, and to bring forth 
the largest possible amount of good with the smallest 
possible admixture of evil. 

He, of whose agency in the world we speak, is 
the Father of Minds. His Nature is essentially and 



PITYING PROVIDENCE. 241 

Infinitely Loving, and what is more, to created 
spirits he stands in a relation ineffably endearing 
and tender. The wrong which they have atrociously 
introduced is his abhorrence, but them he pities and 
loves. We have not to think of a Being, who coldly 
calculates on the principles of wisdom and of exact 
justice, and cares nothing who may be affected by 
these calculations, but of One, whose nature is 
Parental, who is acting for his own offspring ; not, 
therefore, the less wise or the less righteous, but all 
whose procedure must be entirely consistent with 
the intensest pity and the tenderest affection. Suf- 
fering in itself, as well as sin, must be abhorrent to 
The All-Merciful. It is not in creating even this 
— which on the contrary is the necessary effect 
of spiritual wrong — but only in modifying, dis- 
posing and dispensing it, that his agency is con- 
cerned. But if his agency he concerned, we have in 
this fact the very strongest assurance, not only that 
the sum of suffering must be incalculably dimin- 
ished, but that, in the highest possible degree, the 
prime cause of suffering shall itself be reached and 
effectively assailed. 

In the light of the principles which have been 
advocated, we venture to cast our eye over the 
moral aspects of the world, over the entire moral 
11 



242 THE MYSTEEY, ETC. 

history of man, in all Ms countless generations, from 
tlie beginning till now. 

Crimes and snlfferings from the two grand classes 
of difficulties that ask solution at the hands of every 
inquirer. 

"With the first we dare not connect The Almighty; 
the crimes of men are their own; their Creator 
has no part in them, — in their origin, their forms, 
their times, or any of their modifications — no re- 
lation to them except as an Antagonist. No secret 
and no open will of his ever recognised them. He 
never ordained them, and never so arranged it, that 
they should be perpetrated, but only and always />r- 
hade them^ unutterahly hated ihem^ else they had 
ceased to be crimes. From first to last. He has been 
doing one thing, and only one thing, in reference to 
spiritual evil — putting it down; this is the foun- 
dation of his earthly Providence, the principle on ^ 
which it is entirely based. 

But it is altogether different with the sufferings 
of the world : The Almighty has a real and direct 
connexion with them. Physical evil, in itself, is 
not an ordination of His ; it is a necessity, arising 
from the very nature of moral evil ; but with the 
forms which physical evil assumes He has directly to 
do; they belong, on the one hand, to that hereditary, 



SUM CF SUFFEEING LESSENED. 243 

representationary constitution under which the human 
race, by His ordination, is placed, and, on the other 
hand, to that material organisation which he hath 
planned and constructed, and that intimate relation 
between soul and body which He hath established. 
Out of these two Divine ordinations issue, directly 
or indirectly, the gigantic calamities of the world, 
Slavery and War, Famine and Pestilence, all the 
commoner but incalculable evils, the pains, the 
griefs, the diseases, the deaths of our race, and all 
the revolting inequalities and confusions in the out- 
ward condition of human beings. It is quite true, 
that in very great part the results which we witness 
may be owing to the sufferers themselves ; they may 
also, in still greater part, be traced to the ignorance, 
the selfishness, the avarice, the cruelty, the folly, the 
pride, the lust, of their fellow men. But the posi- 
tive agency of God nevertheless is undeniable. 

How can such things, do we ask, happen under the 
government of a mighty, a wise, a holy and a good 
Being ? In calm earnest, is it not owing to the very 
fact, of the government of a wise and holy and good and 
mighty' God, that such phenomena are not incon- 
ceivably more afflictive and terrific ? If even we look 
with pity on the condition of our fellow-creatures, 
He who made them must look on them with Infinite 



244 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

compassion, and wherever lie acts, must act only to 
alleviate suffering, and to diminish its sum. K, now 
and again, we can imagine alleviations possible which 
are not introduced, and evils prevented, which on 
the contrary are endured, sober reason suggests to 
us, that it is with the amount of evil, as a whole, 
that the Great God is dealing, and that the changes 
of which we think, if temporarily and locally good, 
would ultimately and over all be an increase of 
misery. It is impossible, having his character, in its 
essential attributes, before our minds, to doubt that 
that amount is lessened and not augmented by his 
agency. 

The Infinitely Eighteous, Wise, Holy and LoVing 
Being is extirpating, by the most effectual methods, 
that which is the source of all evil^ the dishonour 
and the perdition of the Universe. Apparent indi- 
vidual anomalies (which however are not really such), 
examples of intense suffering, of suffering embracing 
large multitudes and classes of human beings, must 
affect and afflict us. They are fitted to deepen our 
impressions of moral evil, which reveals itself fear- 
fully even in its physical consequences. So far as 
these consequences can be traced, either to the suf- 
ferers themselves, or to the neglect of attainable 
preventives and correctives, and of cordial and active 



CRIME RETRIEVED. 245 

sympathy, in those who might have saved, or could 
have aided the sufferers, there is cause for the se- 
verest reprehension, but no cause for reproaching or 
suspecting either the essential character or the merci- 
ful providence of the Divine Being. The solemn 
conclusion at which we have already arrived is none 
the less sure and unassailable — ^that Moral evil on 
earth is the work of man alone, to which the Creator 
ever was, is, and ever must be Infinitely opposed — 
that Physical evil in itself is the necessary effect of 
Moral evil, which even God could not have pre- 
vented — and that His connexion even with this con- 
sists solely in modifying the forms in which it comes 
forth, in diminishing its sum total, and in directing 
it to the production of the highest good. 

With all the woes and all the crimes of our race 
before our eyes, humbled, grieved, and condemned 
by the spectacle, we can yet look above to the re- 
splendent sunlight of the Infinite JSTature, and be- 
lieve, with absolute confidence, that not a pang, not 
a groan, not a t-ear, not a sigh, has place in our 
world, which could have been spared, on any ground 
of rectitude^ wisdom^ or love. 

The All Mighty Father of Minds is reigning; 
amidst the crimes, the confusions, and the sufferings 
of this world He is pursuing a Divine Plan ; putting 



246 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

down, first moral, and then physical evil ; modifying, 
distributing, allotting, physical evil, in order to put 
down moral evil ; retrieving and correcting that wil- 
ful abuse of liberty, which is the original and the 
sole fountain of all that degrades, affiicts, and pol- 
lutes creation ; bringing back the soul of man to its 
rightful guides. Conscience and Eeason, to those 
laws which alone ought to govern intelligent moral 
beings, which indeed (in the necessity of the nature 
of things) must govern, if creation is to be a har- 
mony ; restoring and realising the original Divine 
Idea of the universe, as a reign of Eighteousness, 
Truth, and Love ; exhibiting Creation as a Family 
and a Home, — The Everlasting One with the Many 
around him, each a glorious a spotless reflection of 
the Source of Being. 






CHAPTER II. 

PHYSICAL AND MORAL EVIL IN THK 
BRIGHTER LIGHT OF REVELATION. 



m THKEE SECTIONS. 

Section I. Evil in The Universe and its Entrance among 

Men. 
Section II. The Course of Evil on our Earth, and the 

Successive Influences directed against it. 
Section HE. The destiny of The Moral Universe. 



C247] 



WRITTEN REVELATION. 

We now pass from the speciilative to tlie positive 
ground, a sphere less exciting to the intellect and 
less susceptible of philosophical treatment, but more 
exact and more satifactory to humble faith. Instead 
of general reasonings, our appeal must be to sober 
facts, recorded in the Hebrew and the Christian 
Scriptures, and to defined principles issuing from 
that Supreme Wisdom, which mercifully communi- 
cated itself to the world, through various organs, in 
different ages. 

The first fact which meets us in this new sphere 
is, that man, in his immortal and moral relations, is 
no longer the only object of investigation. We are 
ushered into the presence of a new form of rational 
and responsible being. It is impossible to read the 
books of the Old and New Testament without dis- 
tinctly perceiving, that they assert the existence of 
another and a higher race of intelligences than man. 
If the authority of these books be admitted, no pos- 
sible scheme of fair interpretation can set aside this 
fact. Whether that authority be admitted or not, 
and whether what these books assert be credited or 
not, it is certain that they contain this doctrine. 



BROTHERHOOD OF MINDS. 249 

And, in itself, it is difficult to see what valid ob- 
jection can be urged against it. It is indeed rather 
probable than otherwise, a thing which we might 
rationally have entertained as a conjecture, even had 
there been no hint of it from any quarter. It is 
elevating and quickening : it exalts our conceptions 
of the Supreme, and of the opulence and glory of 
the universe. On no principle of sound philosophy 
can we conceive it assailed. In the nature of the 
thing, it is not impossible or even unlikely. It is 
not inconsistent with the rectitude, the wisdom, the 
power, or the love of the Creator. It is, in every 
way, more inspiring and glorious to imagine that 
man, instead of being the only actual form of re- 
sponsible existence, belongs to a vaster brotherhood, 
the countless brotherhood of minds, that he is only a 
younger branch of the great family, and that there 
are elder sons of creation, the first-born children of 
the Highest. And this, we hold to be the distinct 
testimony of written Revelation. With those who 
reject its authority we are not here dealing, except 
indeed that, throughout, our aim is to show that the 
discoveries of Revelation are in harmony with the 
highest Reason, and with the soundest philosophy, 
and that they contain and reflect a light, which un- 
11* 



250 



THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



aided Eeason and human Philosopliy are incapable 
of shedding. 

But the dark mystery is this, that while Eeve- 
lation announces the existence of a higher order of 
intelligent beings than men, it announces, at the 
same time, the introduction of moral, and, of course, 
physical evil among them also; a portion of the 
Angelic order is fallen, polluted, and miserable. 

How shall this "be explained ? Does Eevelation 
throw any light on this dark fact, which it announces, 
connecting it in any manner with Human Sin? 
But it must be upon our world chiefly that the light 
of revelation falls ; does it then nnfold, and to what 
extent, the course of evil here ? Does it exhibit the 
successive influences by which the Great Being has 
been correcting and retrieving it? Last of all — 
does Revelation foretel the issue of the conflict be- 
tween good and evil ? Does it picture a consummation, 
and describe the final destiny of the moral universe ? 

Our inquiry here, therefore, will be separated into 
three Sections, viz. — 

First. — ^Evil in the Universe, and its entrance 
among men. 

Second. — The Course of Evil on our earth, and 
the Successive Influences directed against it. 

Third. — The Destiny of the Moral Universe, 



SECTION FIRST. 

EVIL IN THE UNIVERSE, AND ITS 
ENTRANCE AMONG MEN. 



Two Orders of Intelligent Moral Being — I. Angels — 
Spirits — Absence of External Temptation — Probation, 
Responsibility — First Sin, Ambition — Aggravations — 
Creator wholly apart from it — All his Agency opposed 
to it — II. Man — Reason, Conscience, Will — Compound 
Being — Structure, Guarded — External Temptation — 
Protection against Internal not possible — IjEsser Pro- 
tection needless — Temptation not Cause of Sin — Ex- 
poses WHAT WITHIN — HuMAN SiN REMEDIABLE — CrEATOR NO 

Part in it — Opposing it. 



[2B13 



FIRST SIN OF UNIVERSE. 

The original fountain of crime is not in tte nature 
of man, but in tlie nature of angels. And the fact 
of its introduction among this order of creatures is a 
strong confirmation of the conclusion, at which we 
have already arrived, namely, that moral evil, not 
owing to the slightest limitation of Infinite Power or 
Mercy, but in its own nature and from the essential 
constitution of created intelligence, is inpreventihle. 

There are two forms of created Moral Being, and 
only two, so far as we have means of ascertaining — 
Angels and Men ; the one occupying the highest, 
and the other the lowest place in the scale of respon- 
sible existence. Both have fallen, — moral evil has 
found an entrance among both. Had it been pos- 
sible to prevent this issue, it is inconceivable that it 
was not prevented in the one case or the other, if 
not in both.. A decree of Heaven, inevitably fixing 
the same dreadful result in the two cases, we have 
already attempted to prove, is a baseless invention, a 
calumny against the Holy One, so atrocious and so 
foul, that it ought not to be once named. The 
natural and rational inference from the fact, that 
moral evil was realised in both of the two existing 



THE PROBATION OF ANGELS. 253 

orders of created intelligence, is, that it must also 
certainly have been realised in any other possible 
order of created intelligence. Angels and men cannot 
be looked upon as exceptions : they are examples 
of moral being, and what happened to them must 
certainly have happened to any other order, to all 
possible orders, of creatures. To imagine anything 
peculiar in them leading to a peculiar result, is to 
affix a suspicion, as impious as it is groundless, to 
the character of The Almighty. Created intelligence 
is necesarily fallible. It has, in fact, fallen. 

1. The Probation of Angels. 

The materials are exceedingly limited, on which 
to found an interpretation of the first introduction of 
crime into the universe. One thing, in any case, we 
cannot choose but maintain, without abatement or 
modification of any kind, — the essential nature of 
moral evil. That must be the same, whatever the 
circumstances be in which it shall arise, and among 
whatever order of creatures. It is always the abuse 
of moral power, a purely voluntary act of the crea- 
ture, and always wholly in opposition to Conscience 
and Eeason, and to the will and the entire nature of 
the Creator. Kit be mpreventible, this arises from no 



254 THE MYSTEEY, ETC. 



defect of power in the Almighty, but because physi- 
cal power of whatever amount has no possible appli- 
cation to the case. Will, in its very nature,* cannot 
be necessitated (for then it would cease to be will) : 
in other words, the prevention of its abuse is impos- 
sible, lb may be destroyed, but continuing to be 
what it is, it cannot be necessitated. 

The abuse of moral power by some of the angelio 
race is distinctly announced in the inspired books, 
but the circumstances in which it occurred are not 
revealed. One or two facts of their condition, how- 
ever, are communicated, which may here be brought 
into connexion with their apostasy. The consti- 
tution, under which they were placed as a race, was 
one of complete, individual independence and re- 
sponsibility. Nothing of the hereditary, associated, 
representationary system, which is found among hu- 
man beings, existed among them. Instead of suc- 
cessive contributions to their original number, we are 
led to conceive that the existence of all was simul- 
taneous ; and on the other hand, and by this very fact, 
each was in a high degree independent of all the 
rest. They must indeed have been capable of being 
influenced by one another; and in point of fact, it is 

* See pp. 114—160. 



FIEST SIN, AMBITION. 255 

not to be doubted, that tlie example of some, and 
their eflforts to seduce, acted with the most fatal 
Buccess on others. But their constitution as a race 
was one of perfect individuality. Each was essen- 
tially independent and left to stand or fall by him- 
self. 

It would be presumptuous, with our limited means 
of judging, to make a positive assertion respecting 
the special direction in which the virtue of angels first 
gave way, nor is it of high importance to be able to 
decide. There is a kind of traditional faith on the 
subject, generally accepted in the Christian Church, 
which is somewhat countenanced by the little that 
appears in the sacred writings. It is to the effect, 
that the original crime of the universe was ambition. 
But how this, or indeed any other form of evil, first 
gained a footing among the angelic order, whether 
one became corrupt and contaminated the others, or 
whether multitudes became possessed with the same 
thought at the same moment, how the incipient 
movement of crime arose, by what process, and 
through what stages it advanced till it reached its 
mature development, it would be vain to speculate. 
This much may be hazarded, without fear of con- 
tradiction, that whether we look to the peculiar 
constitution under which angels were placed, or still 



256 



THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



more to their nature and condition, the remotest 
possibility of moral evil would seem to have been 
precluded. They were pure spirits, allied most 
nearly to the Great Spirit, the Creator. We are 
led to conceive of them, besides, as the highest form 
possible of created intelligence. Intellect, Con- 
science, Affection, in them found the highest de- 
velopment, though necessarily limited. Their moral 
nature also was not only fully endowed but per- 
fectly pure, without the remotest taint of pollution, 
without the faintest lurking tendency to evil. It 
was besides involved in their condition and their 
nature, that they were absolutely exempted from the 
possibility of external temptation. On the one hand, 
in their purely spiritual being, they were beyond 
the reach of the influences of matter. On the other 
hand, they were alone in the creation, the only 
created intelligences existing, and they were all 
holy. External temptation was literally impossible. 
There was no quarter from which it could arise. 
They were infallibly secure on all sides, except from 
within. Should moral evil ever have place amongst 
them it could only be of their own originating, en- 
tirely the effect of the mere native choice of their 
own wills, unprompted, unsolicited, perfectly spon- 
taneous. 



PROBATIOIS', RESPONSIBILITY. 257 



Amidst tlie conditions that have been named, all 
full of the highest promise, and fitted to secure the 
most triumphant result, the Trial of Created Being 
was made for the first time in the history of the 
Universe. Probation is only one aspect of Eespon- 
sibility. It is not so much any special act of The 
Supreme, as a necessity in the nature of an intelli- 
gent moral being. Such a being is necessarily 
proved, for he is necessarily responsible. It be- 
longs to the possession of a conscience, it finds its 
higher meaning in the doctrine of the Infinite, and 
it is fully developed when to this doctrine is added 
that of a future, immortal life. What beings en- 
dowed like angels are^ and what they c?o, can at no 
moment ever be indifferent. There is a supreme 
authority, to whom they are under deep and im- 
movable obligations, to whom they are ever ac- 
countable. Their state is necessarily and ceaselessly 
a state of probation. No expressed purpose or act 
of The Creator to this effect is required, for the 
thing is involved in the nature of the beings them- 
selves, and in the relation in which they stand to 
the Eternal Guardian of Eighteousness and Truth. 
He who formed them takes, and cannot but take, 
account of them, and knows and marks whether 



258 



THE MYSTEKY, ETC. 



they be faithful or nnfaithfiil to the laws of their 
being, to the Immutable principles of Eight. 

The result of the first great Trial of Moral Being 
in the Universe mnst for ever abide an overwhelm- 
ing mystery. Some of the Angelic order fell from 
their integrity, abused their moral power, volun- 
tarily separated themselves from Eternal Truth and 
Eight, and therefore from the God of both, volun- 
tarily chose evil. We must ask no cause for this ; 
it had no rational cause. It was not an intelligible 
effect of circumstances (for then it had not been 
crime), but an illegal and monstrous abuse of cau- 
sative power. It was not according to any law, but, 
in its very essence, was contrary to all law — a con- 
founding and inexplicable anomaly. We must seek 
no ground, no reason, for moral evil, because moral 
evil is essentially and only Unreason. The created 
will sets at defiance Conscience, and Eeason, and 
Law, and Love, and even The Creator himself, the 
Being who formed it, and who also could in an 
instant destroy, as he formed it.* 

The entrance of crime into God's universe, under 
any conceivable conditions, is awful, but crime in 
Angelic beings has some features of atrocity peculiar 
to itself. The dignity and the strength of their 

* See pp. 209-10. 



ABSENCE OF EXTERNAL TEMPTATION. 259 

natures, their place in the scale of creation, and 
their vast spiritual endowments, deepen our wonder 
at their fall, but they also invest it with an extra- 
ordinary guiltiness. And then the absence of all 
external temptation imparts to it a character of pure 
gratuitousness, a native, inherent malignity, which 
we can conceive nothing beyond. 

Whall we, then, hesitate to pronounce what that evil 
must have been in the Divine sight, which is in itself 
so inexpressibly malignant, and is fraught with such 
ruin to rational beings ? We need entertain no fear 
of speaking too freely, too loudly, on this subject. 
That first crime of the Universe was wholly repug- 
nant to the Holiness, the Wisdom, the Will, of the 
Great Being; had it indeed not been so, it had not 
been crime. His only aspect towards it can have 
been unutterable abhorrence. No secret inclinatiou 
of his favoured it. No judgment of his, founded on 
its prospective consequences, accorded with it. No 
permission of his was extended to it. He only for- 
bade it, only hated it, only acted against it — only 
thought, and felt, and acted in such a way as to 
prevent, resist, retrieve, and destroy it. The strength 
and perfection of Angelic intellect, the pure spirit- 
uality of the Angelic nature, and the absolute exemp- 
tion of the Angelic order from the possibility of 



260 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

external temptation, were so many bulwarks, we 
might have predicted, impregnable bulwarks against 
moral evil. If it was introduced, nevertheless, if 
angels fell, the fact must remain for ever a dark and 
unfathomable mystery. But at least the Creator 
stands wholly apart from it, and opposed to it. There 
remains to us, untouched and untainted, His immacu- 
late Purity, His Suspicionless Love. These are the 
last Stronghold and Hope of the Moral Universe I 
That stronghold abides amidst the crimes and the 
woes of Angels or of Men. 

2. Probation" of Matt. 

On a new theatre, and in circumstances strikingly 
altered, the trial of Created Being was again con- 
ducted. Conscience, Eeason, Volition, the essential 
conditions of Eesponsibility, were not wanting here. 
They could not be wanting. If we suppose, as 
perhaps we are justified in supposing, a lower scale 
and a narrower range of intelligence, and therefore 
also more limited moral perceptions and convictions, 
yet withal, the Human Nature was as strong, within 
its sphere, as the Angelic Nature, and not less 
securely guarded against the possibility of moral 
evil. To distinguish between truth and error, right 
and wrong, belonged to man as to angels. His 



CONSTITUTION OF HUMAN RACE. 261 

nature besides, like theirs, was pure and untainted, 
without inclination or bias, in any one of its con- 
stituent parts, in the remotest possible degree, to evil. 

There were two opposite principles, and only two, 
so far as we are capable of judging, on which intelli- 
gent beings might be constituted. Either the entire 
race might be created at once, or it might propagate 
itself in successive generations. Either all might, at 
the same time, in the same circumstances, be left to 
voluntary self-development, or the successive genera- 
tions might, in the fact of their succession, be de- 
pendent in measure the one on the other, as well in 
their outward circumstances as for moral influences. 
The one we may call the individual, and the other 
the hereditary principle ; the one the independent, 
and the other the dependent, associated, representa- 
tionary principle. 

In the case of angels, we found the first of these 
established. In the case of men, the second was 
adopted. A few hints have already been thrown out 
on the peculiarities of a constitution thus based. Its 
effect, as a restraining if not an impelling force, is a 
fact of every day observation and experience. The 
parent cannot easily divest himself of the thought 
that his character must affect his child for evil or for 
good. Kelations, friends, even members of civil 



262 



THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



society, in their intercourse witli one another, are 
conscious of an amount of influence arising from the 
same cause. If we go back in conception to the 
great progenitor of humanity, the effect of this prin- 
ciple is not to be estimated. In a single sentence, 
we venture to suggest only this, — To a holy being, 
it must have appealed with overwhelming force, that 
Ms choice would inevitably affect deeply the genera- 
tions of his race to the end of time. With all the 
aid derived from this new and peculiar motive, the 
first probation of Humanity was conducted. 

It has already been suggested, that there is some 
ground to imagine that the original crime of the 
universe was ambition. "We cannot err in concluding 
that it could not be fortuitously, but must have been 
with wise and merciful intention, that in the case 
of man an express provision was made in the very 
structure of his being against this evil. This new 
creature was spiritual, but he was material also. In 
one part of his nature, man was brought down to the 
level of the brute earth on which he walked, and in 
his very composition was furnished with a perpetual 
check to ambition and a perpetual motive to humility. 

In one other point, the conditions of Human and 
of Angelic Probation were impressively distinguished. 
Man was not exempted from external temptation. 



EXTERNAL TEMPTATION. 263 

The inspired history conveys the distinct intimation 
that it was by influence from without that his virtue 
was assailed and vanquished. 

^^ Could not the Almighty have hindered the 
tempter from gaining access to his victim ? Could 
he not have prevented the temptation from being 
put before man ?" 

There can be only one consistent reply to such 
questioning. So far as mere physical resources are 
concerned, the Almighty could, not at one moment 
only, but at any moment, and through the whole 
course of man's after existence, have prevented ex- 
ternal temptation. But virtue, which had thus been 
placed within a perpetual shelter, and been the 
result riot of man's choice, but of God's Omnipotence, 
had been utterly worthless, had been no virtue all. 
Nor can it be forgotten, that, in the earlier history of 
the moral universe, the assault, which had proved 
so disastrous to created integrity, had come not 
from without but from within ; and against this, the 
highest source of danger, there neither was nor could 
be any possible protection. Protection from the 
lesser clanger, had it been ever so complete, could 
have availed nothing when the greater danger, in 
all its force, must necessarily have been ever present. 

We ought not to allow ourselves to be troubled, 



264 



THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



even for a moment, by a diflBculty whicli is in great 
part snperficial, and is at least far more apparent 
tlian real. In the condition of human nature, as it 
is constituted on our earth, men inevitably influence 
one another. Their acts of evil, their writings, their 
words, their very looks, may and do often convey 
temptation. There is not a human being who is not 
solicited to evil, every day of his life. The position 
of the Head of the human race, as it is described 
in the sacred history, was in this respect even freer 
from peril than that of any of his descendants. Nor 
does it essentially affect the question that in his case 
the tempter is represented as an angelic, and not a 
human, being. Temptation, whencesoever arising, 
must consist in the presentation of thoughts to the 
mind or of incitements to the appetites and passions. 
Nothing can be plainer than that the opportunities 
and the powers of an unembodied spirit, for this 
kind of agency, must be in every way more limited, 
than those of a being, whose structure is the same 
with our own, and whose association with us is 
intimate and constant. 

But it is even more necessary to bear in mind that 
external temptation, of itself^ is nothing and effects 
nothing. It has the power, which we ourselves give 
to it, but no more. It is indeed trial, something to 



TEMPTATION NOT CAUSE OF SIN. 265 

be borne, something whicli proves and exposes what 
is within us, but it puts nothing there, it can only 
bring out what is already within. Temptation is 
not compulsion ; no amount of temptation can con- 
stitute a compulsion ; did it do so, it would be no 
crime to yield to it. But there is power to resist, 
ever there must be power to resist, else there is no 
probation, and there can be no crime. Moral evil 
is the abuse of moral power, nothing else. Probation 
necessarily supposes temptation, that is, it supposes 
trial of one kind or other, and of what kind does 
not essentially affect the question. Probation means 
that the being is to evince in some way what is 
within him, is to be brought to some test, in order 
to manifest how he will determine for himself, 
whether he will legitimately exert his power of 
choice, or will misuse that power and choose un- 
wisely and wickedly. Temptation, from whatever 
quarter addressed to him, is but a presentation to his 
mind, nothing more. Whether he will welcome or 
dismiss what is presented to him is to be seen, but 
it depends on himself alone. All the power he can 
have, he has^ in the constitution of his nature. 
That power is in no degree weakened, or even in 
the least affected, by the presence of tempta- 
tion. Temptation cannot alter our power, it can 
12 



266 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

only reveal our use of it ; in no way can it cause 
evil in us, it can only stow whether we be such that 
we will do evil. 

At the same time, the fact is memorable and im- 
pressive, that man was assailed by a fellow creature, 
and that this assault from without was the occasion, 
though not the cause of his crime and fall. It is a^ 
teaching on two sides; as to the nature of fallen 
spirits, and as to the destiny of man. On the one hand, 
moral evil in angels is shown to be in its working 
what we had judged it to be in its origin, marked 
by a peculiar and desperate malignity. On the other 
hand, we can hardly fail to feel, that there was not 
the same unmitigated blackness, the same atrocity 
of character, the same mere native viciousness of 
will in human crime, as in the crime of angels. 
The presence of external temptation is a marked 
peculiarity, which to all human conception takes 
from the darkness and depth of the fall, in itself 
considered. 

But crime in our world, however justly it may 
thus be distinguished in some points from crime in 
angels, can have been only abhorrent to The Holy 
One. The wilful abuse of moral power by man, his 
abandonment of the Eternal law of Conscience and 
Reason, his choice of evil, that is, of dishonour and 



fi 



THE CREATOR OPPOSED TO EVIL. 267 

perdition, was an unmitigated abomination in the 
sight of heaven. In the constitution under which 
God had placed man, in the very structure of his 
being, in the new and peculiar nature with which 
He had endowed him, in all His agency, and in every 
aspect of it. He had shown that such an issue could 
be only and unutterably hateful to him. If this 
second Probation of Created Being terminated, like 
the first, in the entrance of moral evil, at least The 
Great Being stands wholly apart from it, and wholly 
opposed to it. No breath must dim the Immaculate 
Purity, the Suspicionless Love of the Creator. These 
are the last Stronghold and Hope of The Moral 
Universe. That stronghold abides amidst the temp- 
tations, apostacies, and deaths of this lower world. 



SECTION SECOND. 

THE COURSE OF EVIL ON OUR EARTH 
AND THE SUCCESSIVE INFLUENCES 
DIRECTED AOAINST IT. 



EST FOUR EPOCHS. 

First Epoch. Divine Benignity. 

Second Epoch. Judgment. 

Third Epoch. The exceptional, elective system. 

Fourth Epoch. The Mystery of All Time. 



EARTHLY PROVIDENCE. 

We liave now to do witli Man alone. Human 
sin is remediable ; by Almighty Mercy it lias been 
remedied. He who was unutterably opposed to its 
introduction has engaged in a protracted warfare, 
the aim of which is the correction and extirpation of 
that only thing in the Universe which he hates. 
Providence is the outspread plan of The Most High 
for putting down sin ; it is the succession of Divine 
Methods, of acting upon the World, of saving and 
regenerating that power, in whose voluntary abuse 
alone, evil originated, of redeeming and bringing 
back undutiful and rebellious children to the feet 
of their Father in contrition and in feith, and of 
attaching them for ever to his character and his 
throne. 

The course of The Divine Providence in our 
world, Eevelation helps us to distinguish into Four 
distinct Epochs, which exhibit the separate and suc- 
cessive methods which The Supreme has adopted, in 
his great controversy with human sin, 

[270] 



FIRST EPOCH. 

DiYiNE Benignity — Longevity of the Early Races of Men — 
" God willeth not that any should perish" — For 1500 
Years, this Influence brought to bear on Mankind. 

The marked feature in tlie Divine discipline of the 
world, tlirongliGTit its entire course, lias been mer- 
cifulness. From the moment when words of grace 
were deposited within the first announced penalty, 
till Love was incarnated in the person of Jesus 
Christ, and from that period till now, The Most 
High has dealt with man, not on the principle of 
exact justice, but on the principle of undeserved, 
unsolicited. Almighty mercy. The manifest intention 
of the Infinite Being has been, not to overwhelm 
his creatures by righteous retribution, but to win 
back their affections by unmerited kindness ; not to 
crush them with his avenging arm, but to break the 
world's heart by tenderness and compassion, and to 
bring down upon it the insupportable pressure of an 
Infinite Grace. 

This large and universal benignity, peculiar to no 
age, but common to all ages alike, is not now^ before 

[271] 



272 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

lis, but only a special and singular manifestation of 
the Divine compassion, wMcli belonged exclusively 
to the early annals of our earth. 

The longevity of the first races of mankind is 
plainly asserted in the sacred writings. With the 
bearings of this fact as a question of physiology 
or ethnology, with its evidences on independent 
grounds, or with its difllculties, we meddle not. As 
a fact resting on the authority of the Hebrew Scrip- 
tures, we take it up here ; and it is of importance to 
us, chiefly when viewed in connexion with the fore- 
goiag history of the temptation and the apostacy. 
In the representation which is given of these dark 
events, and among the conditions of man's trial, this 
forewarning is inserted : '' In the day thou eatest of 
the fruit of the tree thou shalt surely die." 

Moral evil is death. We have sought to show^ 
that this is no Divine ordination, which owes its 
force simply to the supreme will, but that it 
lies in the nature of things, and is a necessity in 
itself. It could not be otherwise. Moral evil is 
death begun in the soul, a positive loss of being, f 
disorder, derangement, perdition. The Eternal fact 
was and must have been realised in man, the instant 

* See pp. 218-19. f See pp. 163-4. 



PATRIARCHAL LONGEVITY. 273 

that lie abused his moral power. But there was a 
positive arrangement of the Holy One superadded 
to the moral necessity^ and inner, spiritual death was 
ordained to be connected with an outer physical dis- 
solution. He who abhorred moral evil, so constituted 
man as to furnish him with a visible image of the 
fearful destiny, for which that evil was preparing 
his soul. Physical Death is one of the divine in- 
struments for retrieving moral death, for effecting 
a moral resurrection, and for regenerating and re- 
storing moral life. In itself, withal, it is an impres- 
sive symbol of the Divine Idea of crime. 

Physical as well as moral death was contained in 
the original forewarning, " In the day thou eatest, 
thou shalt surely die." But it was not inflicted ; 
the infliction was long, very long, withheld, and 
not till it could no longer be withheld, was it suf- 
fered to fall down on the guilty. It had been 
strictly righteous, if the condemnatory sentence had 
immediately taken effect in all its physical meaning, 
as well as in all its moral force, the instant that crime 
was perpetrated. It had been more than righteous, 
it had been merciful, to have delayed the execution 
of the sentence for a year, and yet more for a suc- 
cession of years. But the life of the antediluvian 
patriarchs was preternaturally, at all events, un- 
12* 



271 THE MYSTEEY, ETC. 

usually extended. We are not careful to uphold 
the perfect exactness of the record, as to the length 
of antediluvian life ; but it was unusually extended ; 
that is enough ; and there are independent con- 
siderations in abundance to satisfy any reasonable 
enquirer that this must have been the case. The 
meaning of such a peculiar economy it is impossible 
to mistake. To the men of that age, it ought to 
have spoken as impressively as if a preternatural 
hand had traced in letters of light, on the firma- 
ment over their heads, this heavenly gospel, " The 
Lord is long-suflfering, and full of compassion ; He 
willeth not that any should perish, but that all 
should turn to Him and live." These men must 
have seen, that the Most High was reluctant to 
inflict merited retribution. They must have seen and 
felt, that He had even adopted this gracious method 
of touching their hearts and restoring them to him- 
self, to duty, and to life. 

For more than fifteen hundred years, this arrange- 
ment of singular mercy, this subduing and mighty 
influence, was brought to bear on the world. We 
cannot doubt that multitudes understood and felt 
its power, and bethought them of the Living and 
Loving One. But the condition of the earth as a 
whole, the prevailing character of human society, 



ITS DESIGN AND EFFECT. 275 

was inexpressibly dark at the close of the first epoch. 
An unerring authority declares that ^^ All flesh had 
corrupted their ways ;" *^ The imagination of the 
thoughts of man's heart was evil, only evil, continu- 
ally.'' The earth was filled with violence, and blood, 
and crime. But the fact was only and utterly an offence 
to the Almighty. The maturity of moral evil could 
not be less abhorrent to him, than its first appear- 
ance. Its wide ramifications and its more atrocious 
developments could not be less at variance with his 
will, than its incipient form. All his agency, like 
all his nature, as they had been from the first, now 
especially must have been only directed against it. 
We behold Him adopting the most wonderful, the 
most subduing, and the best adapted, methods for 
putting it down ; even unveihng a new attribute of 
his own nature for this purpose. For the first time 
in the history of the universe, Divine mercy was 
revealed. It had been known from the beginning 
that God was Love, but it had never yet been seen 
that He was Mercy. To the unfallen and the holy 
of his rational offspring He had exhibited infinite 
tenderness ; but that He could forgive the fallen, till 
now had never been made manifest. It was made 
manifest now, and for the putting down of sin the 
Almighty laid open the sacred depths of his own 



276 



THE MYSTERY, ETC. 



Being. In these circnmstances, if tliat mighty mys- 
tery, as horrible as it is mighty, a rebellious created 
Will, continued nevertheless to draw around it only 
thicker darkness, — ^if moral evil developed itself ever 
in new forms, and spread itself ever wider and 
wider, — and if the degeneracy of man deepened and 
darkened, — at least The Creator stood wholly apart 
from it, and opposed to it. Blessed, Blessed Being ! 
All Light is with Thee ! Only Light is with Thee I 
All darkness is from the Creature ! 



SECOND EPOCH. 

Judgment — Deluge — Geological and Moral Difficulties — 
Mercy mingled with Judgment — ^Fears of World ad- 
dressed — " Flee from Wrath to come." 

The Doctrine of a Deluge, dating somewhat above 
four thousand years ago, stands connected with the 
discoveries and conclusions of the Science of G-eology. 
It is not to be concealed that that doctrine, as it was 
earlier understood, as it is even yet generally under- 
stood, is opposed at least to the conclusions of Science. 
Geologists, with scarce an exception, have decided 
that anything like a general, and still more a univer- 
sal, submersion of the world by water, at the date 
supposed, is not to be believed. There is not only 
no evidence of such a thing, but there is, it is al- 
ledged, very sufficient proof to the contrary. But 
scientific men, who have at the same time bowed to 
the authority of revelation, find no difficulty in re- 
conciling the statements of Scripture with Geological 
inductions. A deluge, partial as compared with the 
whole surface of the earth, is not inconsistent with 
observed facts, but rather favoured by them. 

[277] 



278 THE MYSTEKY, ETC. 

Only a part of tlie globe, in these early ages, was 
inhabited, and within this part all the human popu- 
lation, as well as the lower forms of animal life, were 
congregated. A submersion of this part was, in 
fact, a general, a universal deluge. It was a sudden 
and universal destruction of human and animal life 
on the earth. Yiew how we will the question as to 
the number of the earth's inhabitants at that time, 
suppose the human population indefinitely smaller 
than it is now, the judgment was terrific ; the mind 
recoils with horror fi:om the idea of an immense mass 
of life and of intelligence — an entire race of beings 
— ^in a moment swept into eternity. 

It is criminal and vain for men to constitute 
themselves judges of the acts of the Great Being, as 
if they could penetrate into all their grounds, could 
trace out all their ramifications, and could estimate 
all their effects. But in our feebleness and short- 
sightedness, there are some things here which we 
may be able to understand. The Father of Minds, 
must ever have contemplated not any single gene- 
ration, for example, not that single generation alone, 
on which a fate so awful descended, but all the 
countless generations of men to the end of time. 
His rectitude, his wisdom, his power, and his love 
consulted, indeed, for each individual — ^but for each 



GENERAL DELUGE. 279 

individual in his connexion with the great whole. 
Without defect of justice or of kindness even to one, 
God must ever have consulted for the greatest good 
of the greatest number. Mere forbearance, mere 
love to one, himself only considered, might have 
proved the deepest injury to multitudes ; mere for- 
bearance, mere love to a single generation, itself only 
considered, might have proved the deepest injury to 
countless generations to come. 

This idea fixed in our minds, we have then to 
recall one of the leading principles on which the 
Infinitely wise, from the first, conducted his Agency 
among men. It is this : — to connect physical with 
moral evil ; or rather, since physical evil, not by a 
Divine ordination, but in itself, necessarily, is the 
result of moral evil ; it is to arrange and distribute 
the forms of physical evil, so as most eflBciently to 
act upon moral evil for its correction and extinction. 
For example, it was determined to exhibit, in the 
death of the body, a type of the ruin of the soul ; 
by the outward, to inflict the penalty, and yet also to 
provide the antidote for inward evil. Death and all 
the outward evils of the world, their distribution, 
their times, their forms, the numbers and the par- 
ticular individuals on whom they fall, are ordained 
instruments for putting down crime. In this view 



280 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

physical death, whether of one or of many, presents 
to ns no diflficnlty in connexion with the Supreme 
Providence. It must, indeed, ever be appalling, and 
the greater the number whom it overtakes at one 
time, and the suddenness of its infliction, and the 
more revolting its form, so much the more appalling 
must it be. But it presents no difficulty. 

The moral condition of the world, at the time of 
the deluge, has already been described. It was a 
condition of deep and wide-spread degeneracy. In 
spite of all the influence of that singular mercy of 
Heaven, which for fifteen hundred years had been 
continued, and although in that period innumerable 
triumphs had been won, it was a condition of deep 
and wide-spread degeneracy. This being the case, 
it may occur, even to the least reflecting, that if, 
descending from a pure origin, men had thus de- 
generated, and sin had spread its ravages so wide and 
far, the result must have been beyond conception 
terrible, if the world that then was had been suffered 
to perpetuate and propagate itself But this was not 
suffered. In infinite wisdom, and, still more mark- 
edly, in infinite love, it was not suffered. Suddenly, 
and even awfully, the fountain was stopped, from 
which the polluted stream of human life issued, and 
from a new source, and that comparatively pure, the 



A VOICE FROM GOD. 281 

future generations of men were caused to spring 
forth. The universal deluge which followed, as we 
have seen — a distinguished and extended act of 
Divine Mercy — lowers as a huge, dark cloud over 
the early history of the world. But while we gaze 
upon it thoughtfully, there shoot out from it, ever 
and again, gleams of light withal, and within it we 
can believe that there glows the pure, living brilliance 
of uncreated Love. Yet the deluge was emphati- 
cally an act of judgment. In its first and prominent 
aspect, it was an appalling judgment, and without 
question it was designed to influence the fears, as 
before The Highest had influenced the affections and 
the hopes of men. This act of Divine judgment, like 
a lofty and massive column, which all the world 
thereafter might see, rises up at the commencement 
of the second epoch of human history ; and upon it 
was written the warning, in letters which all the 
world might read, " Flee from wrath to come." 

It is yet more striking, that the impression pro- 
duced by this mighty warning was deepened by a 
minor and subsidiary economy, and human life, which 
had heretofore been measured by centuries, was now 
contracted to nearly its present limits. Men looked 
around upon their race, and beheld them falling fast 
and thick, as the ears of corn before the reaper's 



282 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

sickle. It was as if in all directions, now to one and 
again to another, the secret and irresistible STimmons 
were conveyed, ^^Corne to judgment," " Prepare to 
meet thy God." The deluge, at the commencement 
of the epoch, with a loud and terrific voice, cried to 
men, " Flee from wrath to come," *' It is a fearful 
thing to faU into the hands of the Living God." 
Onward through the whole course of fliat epoch this 
voice was re-echoed, in lower but hardly less em- 
phatic tones, by each death that closed a now 
shortened life : '' Flee from wrath to come :" '^ It is 
a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living 
God." 

For more than a thousand years, succeeding the 
first period of upwards of fifteen hundred years, the 
influence of this salutary fear was the chief power 
brought to bear upon the heart of the world. That 
it was effective, and that multitudes were through it 
awakened, regenerated, and saved, we must believe. 
But the root of evil was not destroyed, but continued 
still fearfully vigorous. The curse in the heart of 
the world was not extirpated: ^' The Lord looked 
down from heaven upon the children of men. Be- 
hold they are all gone out of the way ; they are 
together become unprofitable. There is none that 
understandeth and seeketh after God." In such cir- 



PROTEST AGAINST SIN. 283 

cumstances, shall we hesitate for a moment to believe 
that the aspect of The Eternal towards this renewed 
proof of the inveteracy, the indestructibility of moral 
evil, was, as it had been from the first, one of infinite 
abhorrence. If the result of all the discipline of Pro- 
vidence was such as we have seen, this at least is 
certain, it was not hecause, but in the face of all that 
The Most High had done. 



THIRD EPOCH. 

Exceptional, Elective System — Jewish Dispensation — Its 
Origin, Love to World — No Partiality, Favouritism — 
Expedient for preserving Truth /or World — ^Effective 
— ^Darkness, Evil, Wide-spread — Creator apart from 
Result. 

FkoM the beginning, the moral economy of tlie 
world had been universal and indiscriminate. During 
the first epoch of more than fifteen hundred years, 
and during the second epoch of more than a thou- 
sand years, there had been no distinction of indi- 
vidual, nation, or class. The original revelation, 
announced immediately on the introduction of sin 
and formally renewed after the deluge, was given to 
man, to universal man ; it was for all nations and 
all times. The ampler and brighter communications, 
given at the coming of Christ, which have survived 
already nearly two thousand years, it is not doubted, 
are, in like manner, unconditional, indiscriminate and 
universal. There has been only one, not extended, 
interval, which has stood out an exception to all the 
rest of human history. For twelve or thirteen hun- 

[284] 



ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 285 

dred years, an elective system, tlie Jewish economy, 
was instituted. But this sohtary exception, ano- 
malous in its character, has proved a grievous offence 
to the minds of many. The reasonings of those 
who reject the authority of revelation, and their 
ridicule, and their embittered taunts, and their poi- 
soned satire, have been very mainly directed against 
this fact. The God of the Bible, it is maintained, 
is a Being who acts on a system of favouritism, who 
is governed by feelings of partiality, and not by 
large and generous and universal love. And it 
would be unfair not to acknowledge, that the lan- 
guage of too many of the advocates of Christianity 
has often furnished sufficient ground for such an 
allegation. 

The first and grand aim of the Jewish Institute, 
it is surely not possible to mistake. Manifestly, it 
was a pecuhar expedient, for the preservation of 
that truth, which, having been twice formally com- 
mitted to the whole world, had each time been all 
but lost. The original revelation conveyed to 
man immediately after the entrance of crime had 
been re-announced after the deluge. But during 
the first, and not less during the second period, it 
had been awfully obscured and corrupted, so that 
hardly a trace of it, in its genuine simplicity, could 



286 THE MYSTEKY, ETC. 

be discovered. Tlie nations liad *^ clianged tlie glory 
of the incorruptible Grod, into an image made like to 
corruptible man and to four-footed beasts and to 
creeping tbings." The simple message of forgiveness 
and mercy was buried out of sigbt. It was mis- 
understood or forgotten, and in its stead, vain, and 
multiplied, and revolting ceremonies bad been intro- 
duced. 

Tbere remained one mode of saving divine 
trutb from utter extinction. Diffused and dispersed 
over tbe wbole eartb, the Divine ligbt bad been all 
but quencbed, in tbe encompassing darkness. Tbe 
scattered rays, therefore, must be collected and 
concentrated into one focus. Revealed trutb, tbe 
common property of all, and therefore tbe special 
interest of none, and on tbis account, almost uni- 
versally thrown aside and abandoned, must be com- 
mitted to some one guardianship. It must be placed 
within a new shelter, and ftirnisbed with a new kind 
of protection. It must be deposited in the bands of 
some one people, and must be guarded and defended 
as it had never been before, by national partialities 
and peculiarities, and by a singular and imposing, 
and withal significant array of ordinances and cere- 
monies. 

Very evidently^ there was supposed in all this, 



EXPEDIENT FOR PRESERVING TRUTH. 287 

the selection of some one tribe. In the necessity of 
its nature the expedient was elective^ and it could 
have had no realisation, except on this principle. 
If such an expedient was adopted at all, one people 
must be chosen out of all the nations of the earth. 
In this respect an honour must be conferred on one, 
in which none of the others could share. Yery 
peculiar advantages also, and very peculiar con- 
nection with Heaven, must belong to the selected 
tribe. But it is never to be forgotten, that from 
beginning to end, the institution had its origin in 
Divine care, not for one people, but for the whole 
world. Of necessity one people was selected, of 
necessity peculiar honours and peculiar advantages 
were conferred on them. But the reason, the ground, 
of the economy was not partiality to one, but 
ineffable and equal solicitude for all. It was the 
worWs truth which the Jews were selected to guard, 
and it was not for their sakes, but for the sake of 
the world, and for them only in common with the 
rest of the world, that the selection was made. As 
the wisest and most effective method of influencing 
the world, this anomalous, exceptional expedient was 
introduced, in order that in new and happier cir- 
cumstances all restriction might in due time be 
removed, and the light, which ever was the property 



288 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

of the world, miglit again be shed upon it, indiscri- 
minately, universally. 

It is mournful, even humiliating, to think that 
Christians have labored to form what was so ob- 
viously an exception, into a rule and a principle. 
This is the more sad, when we dispassionately look 
' into the character of the Jewish institute as a whole, 
and into the judgment pronounced on it by the 
apostles of Christianity. That it was a Divine 
ordination is a sufficient proof that, for its peculiar 
purpose, it was wise and right and good. But it was 
essentially a temporary expedient, and as essentially 
it was adapted to the limited end which it contem- 
plated, and to the state of the world at the time of 
its institution. That was the religious infancy of 
mankind, and Judaism was therefore, at its best, 
an infantile system. It was throughout, an appeal 
to the senses, and to the mind chiefly through the 
senses. It was besides addressed chiefly to the fears 
of men, and to their higher principles and feelings 
chiefly through their lower emotions. It made use 
of a succession of enlarged pictures (like object 
lessons,) of imposing forms,' of gorgeous and elaborate 
ceremonies ; of peculiar dresses, furniture, localities, 
and times. 

Shall we go back to the state of infancy, now 



HOW FAil EFFECTIVE. 289 

Liiat we have readied manhood ? What was divinely 
wise and right, as connected with a particular age 
and a particular end, would be monstrous after that 
end has been gained and that age has passed away. 
Shall we long for the pictures and symbols and 
weaknesses of childhood, now that we are amidst 
the living reality and maturity of religion ? Shall 
we expect, that the twilight shall reveal a single 
thing which the day has left in darkness ? Shall we 
import the principles of a temporary expedient into 
an enduring and universal economy? Shall we 
explain by Judaism, the higher doctrines and laws 
of Christianity ? The later may, must^ throw a flood 
of light on the earlier ; but it is impossible, in the 
very nature of the thing, that Judaism can add 
one particle of light, in any single direction^ to the 
doctrines of Christianity, which themselves contain 
not. 

But the twilight is Divine as well as the noon- 
day, though it would be foolish to place in the 
twilight, for the purpose of better distinguishing, 
objects which are already placed in the blaze of 
day. The Jewish institute was of God ; and for its 
purpose and its age was divinely wise and right and 
good. For the sake of the world, and as a means 
of acting upon it, for the sake of preserving for the 
13 



290 THE MYSTEKY, ETC. 

world that trnth. which, universally made known, 
had been well nigh lost, The Almighty determined 
to deposit it for a time in the hands of one par- 
ticular nation. That it was not in vain, we may 
rest perfectly assured. On the one hand, by this 
expedient nothing was taken from the general 
world. All the truth which it retained it had still, 
as if no such expedient had been introduced. But a 
new influence, a new motive to inquiry, was set to 
work, and a new source of information was created. 
Among the selected people themselves, it is impos- 
sible but that a degree of illumination, not other- 
wise to be attained, must have been reached. Their 
entire national economy was a training, an education 
in the highest truth ; a school, in which they were 
brought up to Faith in One Living and True 
Jehovah, in his Attributes, his Providence, and his 
Salvation. And we can hardly doubt that the 
circumstance of such peculiar distinctions enjoyed by 
one people, of such peculiar pretensions to religious 
light as they put forth, and stUl more of such actual 
religious knowledge as they clearly possessed, must 
have exerted a powerful influence on surrounding 
nations, far and near. Even had no direct efforts in 
any way been made by the Jews themselves for 
diffusing their religion^ surrounding nations would 



EVIL WIDE-SPREAD. 291 

be impelled to come to them, to inquire and ex- 
amine. Proselytes to Judaism wexe not hindered, 
if they were not directly invited, and multitudes, 
who had no thought of becoming proselytes, might 
yet be deeply influenced and extensively instructed. 
There are a few scattered facts in this connection, 
which awaken almost unlimited hope. The mission 
of Jonah to Nineveh, the extensive commercial and 
political relations of the Jews during the reign of 
several of their kings, their various and lengthened 
captivities, and the coming of the Eastern Sages to 
inquire after the birth of Christ, — all suggest far 
more than they directly express, in reference to the 
influence of the Jewish institute upon the rest of 
mankind. 

But it is confessed on all hands, notwithstanding, 
that the moral condition of the world at the close of 
the thirteen hundred years was lamentable. Dark- 
ness covered the earth and gross darkness the nations ; 
and even the light in the Holy Land was dim and 
impure. The Jews had abused and corrupted their 
own economy. Though they had not sunk into 
idolatry, the prevailing views of the character of 
God, of the nature of Eeligion and even of Human 
Virtue, were miserably false, and the general moral 



I 



292 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

reputation of Judea could scarcely descend to a 
lower point than it had reached. 

But at least The Great Being had no part in 
this issue. We behold him only guarding against 
it, introducing a new and anomalous expedient di- 
vinely fitted to prevent it. Throughout, as from 
the first. His attitude towards Moral Evil was that 
of an Irreconcilable Antagonist. And now also, if 
the darkness, ungodliness, and vice of the wide 
world were such as we have found, at least He was 
wholly apart from it and opposed to it. 



FOURTH EPOCH. 



THE MYSTERY OF ALL TIME. 



First. An Incarnation of Divinity. 

Second. A New Expression and Medium of Infinite Mercy. 

Third. A Perfect Humanity. 

Fourth. A New Revelation of Spiritual Truth. 

Fifth. A New Fountain and Channel of the Divine Spirit. 



METHOD OF PROVIDENCK. 

Moral Proyidence, in the view which we have 
hitherto taken of it, is prolonged and varied Edu- 
cation of the mind and heart of the world. It is 
a series of merciful appeals to the will of man, a 
series of divine methods for subduing it and bring- 
ing it back to the sway of conscience and of God. 
It is a continued but ever-shifting contest with 
moral evil, in order to its correction and extirpation. 
That the contest had been mightily successful is not 
to be doubted. If, with all the resistance made to 
it, and all the corrective discipline directed against 
it, the crime of the world was yet so vast in amount, 
what must it have been had it been altogether 
unresisted or assailed by a less formidable force. 
In spite of its virulence, its insidiousness, its te- 
nacity, almost indestructibility, the world was truly 
advancing, — advancing to a destiny of exalted good. 
The first epoch, with its peculiar moral instrumen- 
tahty, impelled the human race so far onward in its 
course ; the second epoch witnessed a still greater 
advance; and the third epoch saw "the fulness of 
the times," the filling up and completion of the neces- 
sary period^ during which all the introductory and 

[294] 



I 



THE FIXAL ECOXOMY. 295 

preparatory discipline tlirougli which the world had 
to pass was conducted, until everything was ripe for 
the last, the best, the universal, the triumphant form 
of rehgion, which is to endure to the end of time. 

What the essential meaning and the deep design of 
this final economy must be, is sufficiently apparent 
from the nature of all the previous dispensations. 
This is the prolongation and the victorious conclusion 
of the Almighty's great controversy with human sin; 
the last step in that moral education of the world 
which he has been conducting from the first ; His 
last appeal to the will of man ; his last method of 
subduing, restoring, and sanctifying it, and of re- 
uniting to himself his apostate and rebellious chil- 
dren. And if this be so, it is not to be wondered at, 
that here we behold an unveiling of Divine resources 
such as the world never before saw and never can 
see again. The Incarnation and the Cross are the 
names of two events that stand alone in all Time. 
Together they form a luminous centre, around which, 
the history of man arranges itself, — the past all 
looking towards this central point, and the future 
all branching out from it. Mystery and Openness, 
Weakness and Power, Grlory and Ignominy, are here 
in marvellous combination, eloquent of the presence 
of a wonder-working, an almighty hand. 



296 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

Before we inquire more minutely into the nature 
of this last, complex, moral instrumentality, which 
the Supreme has brought to bear on the world, 
there is a preliminary question, on which at least 
a brief attention must first be bestowed. Why 
was this instrumentality not made use of, at an earlier 
period in the history of man ? If it be so eflSLcient, 
why were four thousand years suffered to elapse 
before it was introduced ? Why did not The In- 
carnate appear, at the commencement instead of the 
end of the ages ? 

The answer of simple piety to these questions is 
very short, and withal perfectly satisfactory, — ^' God's 
time, is the best." This is entirely sufficient in all 
cases, in which it is not possible to reach farther 
satisfaction. In the present instance, however, it 
may be possible, not simply to believe, but distinctly 
to comprehend and to exhibit the wisdom and recti- 
tude of the divine procedure ; and for ourselves to 
know— at least in part — how and why it was that so 
long a period of time elapsed, before the final dis- 
pensation was introduced. 

In the beginning of the ages, such a mystery as 
the Incarnation, and still more the Crucifixion, could 
have seemed only a gratuitous and wasteful expen- 
diture of divine resources. At that peroid it was 



EXTIRPATION OF EVIL. 297 

unknown, even unimaginable, what moral evil really 
was, and with what consequences it was fraught. A 
corrective, loudly demanded at a later period, had 
been then a mere misapplication. The Evil must 
first develope itself before its radical nature could be 
discovered, and before, therefore, the antidote which 
it really needed could admit of being applied. Evil 
did develope itself awfully, and showed that it did 
verily demand for its cure, an unheard-of, a myste- 
rious remedy. In putting it down. The Supreme 
was acting not for a single generation, but for 
all the generations of men to the end of time ; may 
we not even imagine, that he was acting for all 
intelligent beings in the Universe, and so as to 
correct in the most effectual way that which is the 
one source of evil anywhere and everywhere ? For 
men's sake, and for the sake of the whole intelligent 
universe, a complete revelation must be made of what 
spiritual wrong really was, else it had been only 
superficially cured and its deep root had been im- 
reached. Our world, therefore, became a place of 
instruction to the universe, — ^instruction on the most 
profound and awful subject. Here alone a kind of 
knowledge, essential to all created intelligences, was 
to be obtained. 

In the abodes of the unfallen and the recovered, 
13^ 



k 



298 THE MYSTEKY, ETC. 

purity is imniingled. In the abodes of the irreclaim- 
ably reprobate, vice reigns without a contest. In 
this world alone both purity and crime are found, 
and found in direct and direful conflict. Here alone, 
in all the universe, two mighty spiritual forces are 
strugghng for the mastery. When rival nations 
are embroiled, are mustering troops and collecting 
ammunition and arms and all the necessaries of war, 
and when at last hostile armies take the field, their 
movements are watched on all sides with trembling 
interest ; the character of their respective leaders is 
canvassed, the probabilities of victory or of defeat are 
calculated, and disastrous results to one or to both 
are predicted. But here the conflict is not physical 
but moral ; not between two armed masses, but, 
between two great principles. The world, human 
nature, is the battle-field, and the vicissitudes of the 
fight are to furnish instruction to the universe, both 
as to moral excellence and as to moral evil. As 
to evil, especially, instruction is to be given ; the 
endless forms in which it may appear, the positions 
it may assume, and all its manoeuvres and modes of 
attack. But for this conflict, and its protracted and 
varied exposure on this field, it never could have been 
known, or even imagined, what spiritual wrong really 
was; to what irrationality, debasement, and pollution 



HUMAX RESOURCES INADEQUATE. 299 

it was capable of dragging down the soul ; in what 
enormous ingratitude and what dark abominations it 
might involve man ; what horrible forms it was 
capable of assuming ; how insidious, how endless in 
resources, and how all but indestructible it was \ 
But all this must be disclosed^ and for this great 
reason chiefly, because otherwise the remedial mea- 
sures would have seemed premature and have been un- 
appreciated. It ica-s disclosed therefore, and not until 
the world was prepared, was that last and mightiest 
instrumentahtv of which God was to make use, 
developed in all its completeness and its grandeur. 

There was manifest wisdom (even necessity) in 
first bringing all that men themselves could affect, to 
a prolonged and decisive test before the Most High, 
in the resistlessness and plenitude of his resources, 
interposed. For four thousand years, therefore, the 
utmost power of man was allowed unlimited scope. 
In every part of the globe, and under every variety 
of conditions, all that human research, human learn- 
ing, human genius, human piety, and human virtue 
could accomplish was put to the proof That these 
effected nothing, it would be a libel on the Creator 
himself to maintain. They were not, and could not, 
have been useless. So far as they were capable of 
reaching, they must have been effective ; but they 



300 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

fell short, hopelessly short, of the necessities of the 
case. One grand object was completely secured by 
them — the urgent need for higher wisdom and 
higher power than man's, for divine interposition, 
was at length wrought into the deepest convictions 
of the world. It is a well-authenticated historical 
fact that, at the time of the coming of Christ, not 
in Judea only, where such a thing might be ac- 
counted for on other grounds, but in every part of 
the world, the intense, agonising desire for help 
from above was felt; and not this only, but the 
ardent expectation was even cherished, that the 
needed help from above was close at hand. Wearied 
and disappointed, after unnumbered all-but-fruitless 
efforts, for four thousand years, the world sent up a 
universal cry for Almighty deliverance. That cry 
was heard, and the answer to it was given, in the 
Incarnation and the Cross. The Necessity is first 
proved and first felt, and then it is divinely provided 
for. The deep desire is first created, and then it 
is mercifully met and supplied. A wise father, in 
dealing with a rebellious son, does not exhaust all 
his resources at once, does not at first put forth the 
highest effort which he is capable of making; for, if 
this should fail, he has then nothing on which to fall 
back. He advances step by step; rises from the 



I 



DIVINE TNTERPOSITION. 301 

less to the greater ; adopts first one metliod and 
then another more likely to have effect, and then 
another yet more likely still ; gradually augmenting 
the moral influences and forces, — till nothing more 
remains for him to attempt. 

It is not presumptuous to assert that, had Christ 
appeared in the beginning of the world, it had been 
vain to have thereafter introduced any of the lesser 
instrumentalities, which, as we have seen, were in 
their place so effective. There is a marked pro- 
gression, a gradual increase of force, in the methods 
which the Almighty employed in dealing with the 
world. By slow degrees he opens the magazine of 
his resources, beginning with the less powerful in- 
struments, and rising at length to the highest and 
mightiest of all. He brings forth now one expedient 
and again another ; and, at last, after patiently wait- 
ing for four thousand years, and having, by the 
wisest and most effective means, prepared and ma- 
tured the world, he lays bare the deepest fountains 
of his own nature, and seeks to subdue man's obdu- 
rate soul by a final and mighty effort, by all that is 
mysterious and awful, condescending, compassionate 
and godlike, in the fully developed plan of his Moral 
Providence. 

It is not here presumed, to attempt a full-length 



802 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

exhibition of Cliristiaiiity as a Power in the Al- 
mighty hand for acting on the world. We meditate 
only an outline, not drawn without care, but imper 
fectly filled up. 

The Power of Christianity is centred in a Being, 
raised up once in all time, for an end as unique in 
its character, as it is glorious in all its relations and 
results. Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the symbol, the 
dwelling, and the source of all in Christianity which 
acts with regenerating and reclaiming force on the 
human soul. Christianity, viewed in this light, and 
in its essential connection with an actual Person, 
is as complex as it is mighty; but yet in its com- 
plexity it is strictly one — ^in aim, even in action and 
in the mighty hand which wields it. It is distin- 
guishable into Five distinct kinds of Instrumenta- 
lity:— 

First. It presents an Incarnation of Divinity. 

Second. A New Expression and Medium of In- 
finite Mercy. 

Third. A Perfect Humanity. 

Fourth. A New Eevelation of Spiritual Truth. 

Fifth. A New Fountain and Channel of the 
Divine Spirit. 



i 



INCARNATION. 

I. An Incarnation op Divinity — Jesus of Nazareth, God 
in Man — Mighty Instrument, subduing rebellious Will. 

The reality of the Incarnation must be here as- 
sumed, and it must suffice to sketch, a bare outhne 
of the leading facts and of the conclusions which 
they estabhsh. About eighteen hundred years ago, 
there lived on this earth a native of Judea, by name 
Jesus of Nazareth. He was a young man ; he was 
brought up in very humble life ; his reputed parents, 
his relations, and all his associates, belonged to the 
lower ranks of society. He was a common car- 
penter, working at his trade till he was thirty years 
old. At this age, of his own accord, without solici- 
tation or encouragement from any quarter, he ap- 
peared in public ; and, after a ministry of only three 
years, he suffered death by crucifixion at the age of 
thirty-three. His youth, and his entire social cir- 
cumstances and position, when viewed in connection 
wath his preeminence as a revealer of spiritual truth, 
with his personal wisdom so far surpassing in amount 
and in kind that of the most renowned sages, and 
with his blameless, perfect, unexampled spiritual cha- 



304 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

racter, make out, as Christians believe, an essential 
and organic difference between him and all men — a 
difference not of office but of nature. The evidence 
of history, and the laws of the human mind, pro- 
nounce the impossibility of any m^ere man — especially 
in the circumstances in which he was placed — ^rising 
to that wealth of wisdom and that moral perfectioq 
which belonged to Him, An Incarnation of Divi- 
nity, in this unparalleled instance, is alone sufficient 
— and it is perfectly sufficient — to account for a 
combination of spiritual phenomena with outward 
conditions, never realised except in Jesus of Naza- 
reth. He must have been Divine as well as human, 
tlieOnQ Incarnation for all time, God in Man? * 

In this overwhelming Mystery, we behold a new 
proof of Grod's Antagonism to Moral evil — a proof 
peculiar to the era of Christianity. This was the 
wondrous instrument, which in the fulness of the 
times the Great Being brought to bear on the human 
soul, and with which he came forth to contend with 
man's perverted and rebellious Will. This is the 
instrument, which for nearly two thousand years he 
has been wielding, not against his apostate children, 

* For the full development of the argument, of which only a 
hint is here presented, the author must refer to his work 
entitled " The Christ of History," &c. 



ITS MORAL SIGXIFICAISrCE. 805 

but against their foe, tlie foe of all created Being. 
Of necessity, the instrument wholly designed to bear 
upon a moral evil, and to effect a moral purpose, is 
itself of a moral nature. The fact of Incarnation is 
also a truth appealing to the Reason and the Con- 
science. Had that fact been physically and exter- 
nally attended with circumstances, which should 
have rendered it perfectly irresistible at the time, it 
would not only have been a contravention of the 
entire system of providence, but, constituted as 
human nature is, it must withal speedily have lost 
its power. The most vivid and overwhelming im- 
pressions on the senses, often repeated, and especially 
long continued, eventually cease to be felt. The ex- 
traordinary soon becomes common and fails to excite 
wonder. Nor can it be overlooked, as the wisest 
theologians pointedly teach, that the only end of phy- 
sical miracles is to arouse attention. Moral changes 
are affected, not through the excitement of the senses, 
but through the convictions of the understanding 
and the conscience. The mystery of Incarnation was 
not for the eye, but for the judgment, the heart, and 
the moral nature. Evidences of its reality in abun- 
dance were furnished, but it was a thing not to be 
forced irresistibly on the soul, but to be examined, to 



306 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

be deeply and reverently pondered, and to be em- 
braced on solemn conviction. 

Conviction of this Mystery once reached, its neces- 
sary effect, at least its necessary tendency, can admit 
of no dispute. That the Most High had incarnated 
himself, that he was so profoundly interested in his 
fallen creatures as thus to come down among them, 
and in a way to us incomprehensible, to unite him- 
self to human nature, and make it a tabernacle for 
his wisdom, his purity, his truth, and his love ; this 
fact, these principles, really believed, we can conceive 
of no instrument so sure to reach, subdue, overwhelm 
the soul of man. The divine condescension was in- 
effable. On the other side, the proof of God's an- 
tagonism to evil was complete. His only connection 
with it, from first to last, has been in putting it down. 
But in order to put it down, there is nothing which 
He is not ready to do. The mystery of all Time 
shall be unveiled, and the intelligent universe shall 
behold '' God Manifest in Flesh." 



THE CROSS. 

II. A NEW EXPRESSION AND MeDIUM OF INFINITE MeRCY — CrOSS, 

THE Power of Christianity — Subduing Myriads — Divine 
Instrument, exterminating Moral Evil. 

The Infinite mercy of the Almighty had never 
been unexpressed and destitute of a medium, from 
the first moment of human crime. But in the Incar- 
nation, and above all, in the Cross, an utterance of 
this Divine sentiment was given, and a channel for 
its outflow was opened, such as the world never 
before had known. 

This is not the place, for doing justice to the 
interior peculiarities of the Christian system. Our 
business is rather with the outworks and with those 
broad general views, which no dispassionate inquirer 
can fail to recognise. In the meantime, it is not too 
much to assert that the moral recovery of the world, 
while it was the end of the entire ministry and 
mission of Christ, must have been still more mys- 
teriously related to his death. For that recovery he 
often declared, not only that he was prepared to 
sacrifice his life, but that he expected nothing less, and 

[307] 



808 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

was indeed designated to this issue. In point of 
literal fact, for this and nothing less, he did at last 
sacrifice his life. 

Without reasoning on the subject, no unprejudiced 
inquirer can deny that, from whatever cause, it is 
emphatically the cross of Christy which has acted as a 
mighty spiritual force upon the soul of the world. 
Hardly less undeniable is it that the Cross has thus 
acted, because it contains the most touching expres- 
sion of love and mercy, as well as offers the highest 
evidence of the invincible moral power of the 
Redeemer. As a simple matter-of-fact, it is the 
doctrine of crucified love that has triumphed over 
man, that has been Almighty through God, that 
has arrested, captivated, regenerated human hearts. 
Wherever the cross has been wanting, Christianity 
has appeared shorn of its strength, — an ineffective, 
lifeless, cold system. Wherever this has been lifted 
up, even though often associated with egregious 
human weakness and with serious human errors, it 
has proved an all but resistless power. The most 
expressive symbol, the most direct medium, and the 
chief fountain of the saving energy of Christianity, 
is the cross. 

The doctrine of the forgiveness of sin Vas not, 
indeed, new to the world at the coming or at the 



THE POWER 'OF CHRISTIANITY. 309 

death of Jesus. It had been promulgated in Para- 
dise, and from that spot had issued forth, and been 
circulated over the whole earth. It was the original 
revelation given to man, — ^to universal man. But 
such a basis as was now laid for human trust in it, 
the world had never seen, such influences and asso- 
ciations as now encompassed it, the world had never 
experienced, such views of infinite purity, blended 
with infinite pity, as were now thrown open, had 
never before been presented. The Great Being, him- 
self caring for all the interests that were at stake, 
and gloriously providing for them all, promulgates 
pardon, — ^free, unconditional, universal pardon ; com- 
mands, invites, beseeches his guilty children to return 
to Him, and expostulates and remonstrates with them 
on the folly, the wickedness, and the utter destruc- 
tiveness of their course. ^^ Grod in Christ is recon- 
ciling the world to himself, not imputing their tres- 
passes unto men." His great work in the world all 
along, the one end of his Moral Providence, had 
been to reconcile, to gain over men to himself. But 
in Christy in Christ's mission as a whole, in his life, 
his character, and his teaching, and impressively and 
mysteriously in his death and his cross, he is redeem- 
ing men to himself, winning them back, gaining their 



810 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

affections, reclaiming their perverted wills, and tak- 
ing possession of their consciences. 

In Christ, the world beholds very God, so far as 
it is possible for Him to be imaged in hnman form ; 
— God pitying and loving his creatures and adopting 
a method inexpressibly grand for putting down that 
evil, which is their disgrace and their perdition; 
God assuming a nature which was capable of toiling, 
weeping, bleeding, dying for men's salvation. The 
spiritual history of myriads of human beings is in- 
terpreted by that word, the Cross. They have 
been arrested by this power, when every other had 
failed to reach them. Suddenly they have been 
attracted by an object which, in its deep meaning, 
they had never before looked upon, Incarnate, Cru- 
cified, Dying Love ! not dissociated from Infinite 
Eectitude, Purity, Majesty, and Truth, but rather 
encompassed and irradiated by these glories. Sud- 
denly, they have caught a glimpse of this Divine 
Mystery, the Great mystery of Godliness, and never 
after have they been able to remove their eyes from 
it — God in Christ ; God in an attitude of amazing 
tenderness and pity, winning back his creatures to 
himself The wondrous sight, and the more won- 
drous truths of which it is the symbol, have taken 



m 



LIFE THROUGH DEATH. 811 

entire and permanent possession of tteir whole beiug, 
and reclaimed and renovated their natures. ^^If 
any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old 
things have passed away, behold all things have 
become new.^' 

This is the sacred influence which The Most 
High, having himself prepared, now wields against 
Moral Evil, and by which he is expelling it from 
the soul of man. Intense, Infinite must be His 
abhorrence of it, when he contrives and puts forth 
means so stupendous, for effecting its extermination. 
Not only shall the Mystery of All Time, God 
manifest in Flesh, be unveiled, but the Incarnate 
One shall bleed and die on a Cross I There is Al- 
mighty Strength in this symbol of utter weakness! 
There is surpassing glory in this amazing depth of 
disgrace ! There is Life, the Life of the World, in 
this Death ! 

Never were more prophetic words uttered than 
those of the Blessed Saviour of men, and never was 
prophecy more strikingly falfiUed, than this ! " I, if 
I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." 



PERFECT HUMANITY. 

III. A Perfect Humanity — Image held up by God before 
THE World — To affect Conscience and Heart. 

It woiild not be difficult, to produce subduing evi- 
dence and to create a strong impression of the moral 
beauty, the spiritual perfection of the character of 
Jesus."^ But it may be pardoned, if here we assume 
what few have ever dared to question, and if we 
turn at once to the Divine purpose in this mani- 
festation of spiritual glory. 

" If virtue were to descend to the earth, all men 
would fall down and worship her," said a celebrated 
Divine, perhaps caring more for the rhetoric than 
for the accuracy of the sentence. It was replied by 
a Divine of an opposite school, virtue did descend to 
the earth in the person of Jesus Christ. But all 
men did not fall down and worship Him^ but ^^they 
took him and with wicked hands they crucified and 
slew him." Perhaps in the felicity and withal justice 
of this rejoinder, it was overlooked that the high 
design of God, in this living impersonation of virtue, 

^ See " The Christ of Histoiy," &c. 

0312] 



LTVrXO IMPERSOXATION OF VIRrUE. 813 

nevertlieless, was to gain the afr(3ctioiJS and to s(;ciiro 
the worship of the world. And if Jesias did die, it 
rmist not be forgotten that he rose again. Virtue 
was laid in the grave, but after three days there 
was a glorious resurrection, and the life-picture of 
human perfection Is fresh before the world at this 
hour. It is an unhappy circumstance, that because 
one class of theologians have made the example of 
Christ all but everything, another have sought to 
represent it, as next to nothing. But that example 
IS alone in the world and in all history, and it is an 
express Divine product, and for a purpose of tran- 
scendent interest. It is hardly possible to over- 
estimate the power to influence the human soul, 
which lies in the matchless beauty and glory of the 
character of Christ — the image of human perfection, 
held up by God himself; before his fallen creatures, 
in order to win them back to purity and truth. In 
neglecting this we cast dishonour on a Divine instru- 
mentality, we shut our eyes to one of the chief 
wonders of Moral Providence, and we turn away 
from that which is fitted to penetrate to the deepest 
affections of our souls, and to reclaim and renew our 
perverted moral nature. 

The Unseen Antagonist of Moral Evil employs 
as one of his merciful and mighty methods of assail- 
14 



314 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

ing and destroying it this development of human per- 
fection. He brings forth in the sight of the world, a 
living example of spotless moral excellence. Eight 
in front of fallen humanity, he places an unfallen 
human soul, in all its attractive and subduing loveh- 
ness. He points to a human will, that was always in 
glad harmony with his will, that always acted faith- 
fully, according to its constitution, and was always 
determined by the voice of Conscience and Eeason. 
What men ought to be, had often been declared in 
the clearest and strongest language, and indeed was 
fully known by themselves, for it was written within 
them by a Divine hand. But words are inexpressive 
compared with deeds. With a point and force which 
no words could convey, the destiny and the duty of 
universal humanity were now pronounced in an actual 
life. The God who hated sin, who only, always, and 
infinitely hated it, now revealed to men what it was 
that he loved, and that they ought to love and 
become. To the soul of the world, God was now at 
pains to speak as he had never done before ; to the 
moral susceptibilities, to all the feelings of the heart, 
and to the perceptions of the understanding, he spoke 
in a new and living — would that it had been, as it 
ought to have been, resistless language I 



THE DIVINE MEISSAOE. 

lY. A New Revelation of Spiritual Truth — Truth, quick- 
ening, RESTORING — LiFE OF SoUL — DiVINE PROVISION FOR 

PERISHING Humanity. 

The inexhaustible opulence of the Christian Eevela- 
tion makes it necessary, to deal with it either at great 
length or not at all, and forbids so discursive and 
brief an examination of it as alone would be possible 
for us here. Here, also, we begin with an assump- 
tion and take for granted the variety, fulness, and 
grandeur of that message which Jesus Christ an- 
nounced to the world.^ Assuming that the gospels 
are his message, and that they contain imperishable 
divine ideas undivulged before, we advance to the 
position, that these ideas are a new power in the hand 
of the Almighty, for putting down that which He 
abhors. 

In one of its aspects, Moral Evil is ignorance, 
wilful ignorance, putting away the truth, not suf- 
fering the voice of truth to be heard, acting in 
defiance of it. The Original Sin of our world is 
represented as ignorance, or false views of The Most 

* See " The Christ of History," &c. 

£3161 



316 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

High, deliberately false views of The Most High, as 
if what He had declared might yet prove untrue. 
This was immediate death to the soul, begun sepa- 
ration from the fountain of all life, the sign, and also 
the cause, of yet deeper separation and of ultimate 
ruin. But there is a life, opposed to this death. 
The antidote takes its character from the evil, the 
cure from the disease. 

Spiritual truth is the medium and even the very 
material of the Soul's life. Hence it is beautifully 
and strikingly declared, " This is life " — ^its essence, 
its substance, that in which it consists — ''this is 
life, is Eternal life" — what? Knowledge — ''to 
know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ 
whom thou hast sent.'* All truth is quickening and 
restorative. The ignorant mind is a dead mind, and 
when knowledge is let in upon it, it is like a resurrec- 
tion from the grave, the beginning of a new career 
of life, the opening of a new world. In the highest 
sphere of all, when the fallen will has put aside 
truth, and has acted in defiance of Conscience and 
Eeason, and the being has thus suffered a literal 
death-stroke, restoration to Life is no other than the 
soul's return to truth and its glad acceptance of it. 
If the origin of death in our world was false views 
of the Almighty, the resurrection to life can only be 



TRUTH LIVING AND SAVING. 317 

hjjitsi views of The Almighty. The beginning of 
peace to the conscience, and of purity to the heart, 
the deep source of all impulses and motives to good, 
the corrective of the perverse will, the restorative of 
moral power to its legitimate use is living, spiritual 
truth. Truth from heaven, shed down on the con- 
science, the understanding, and the heart is like life 
from the dead. '^ The words that I speak unto 
you," said Jesus, ^Hhey are spirit and they are life." 
Elsewhere he compares them to living bread, of 
which if a man eat he shall hunger no more, and 
again to living water, of which if a man drink he 
shall thirst no more. 

The personal ministry of the Eedeemer, in this 
vicAV, was the opening of a deep and exhaustless 
spring, whose waters, after two thousand years, are 
as plenteous at this day, as fresh, as living and as 
vivifying, as when they first gushed from the foun- 
tain. In that ministry, to change the figure, we 
behold God pouring a flood of light upon the 
world, in which its darkness might be quenched. 
That truth, by deliberate resistance to which man 
had fallen, in deliberate resistance to which all sin 
consists, was brought marvellously near. In new 
forms, invested with new attractions, through a new 
medium it was presented, and so plentifully, so 



818 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

variedly, and so ceaselessly that it might be impos- 
sible any longer to darken or to defy it. On all 
sides, God now poured down light and truth. Man 
was revealed to himself; his nature, his sin, his 
danger, his escape, his duty, and his destinies. God 
was unveiled, in his being, in his attributes, in his 
merciful purposes, in his Providence, and in his 
redeeming agency. The plan of reconciliation too 
was exposed in the open view of the world ; its per- 1 
feet freeness, the consequences of impenitence, the 
inevitable perdition of the unreclaimed soul. Future 
Happiness and Future Misery, were proclaimed 
aloud. And in all this, as if from his own throne, 
in a voice of ineffable pathos, God cried to the 
world, *'0h, do not the abominable thing which 
Thate!" 



I 



THE HOLY OHOST. 

Y. New Fountain and Channel of the Divine Spieit — 
Strivings of the Holy Ghost — Death destroyed by Con- 
tact WITH Life — Points of Contact multiplied — Outpour- 
ing OF Holy Ghost — Triumph, the Eeign of God in Man. 

The world had not to wait for a Holy Ghost, till the 
unfolding of Christianity. It is imposible to read 
the books of the Old Testament, with openness and 
candour, vyithout receiving the impression that they 
distinctly teach a constant Divine Influence on Man. 
From the beginning, it was the Holy Ghost that 
strove with the world, — that was wickedly resisted, 
but that continued still to strive. The real an- 
tagonists in that portentous warfare, of which our 
earth was the theatre, were the spirit of man and 
the Spirit of God. The origin of the warfare was 
the revolt of man from his Maker. But the rebel 
was not abandoned to his fate. We have seen what 
various and wonderous methods, in succession, were 
adopted in addressing the human conscience and 
intellect ; how the Almighty, in the early ages of 
the world, spoke first in tones of mercy, then in 
a voice of judgment, and then through the medium 
of a pecuhar and anomalous economy. In each of 

[319] 



320 THE MYSTERY, ETC. ^ 

these various ways, whatever moral power went forth 
to affect man, was Divine Power. These were so 
many means, through which the Infinite One sought 
to come and did come into contact with the human 
soul and take possession of it again. Any of these 
was effectual, only so far as it brought down upon 
man a sense of God and drew his thoughts and his 
heart back to God. It could be illuminating, purify- 
ing, or quickening, only because it proved to be 
a medium through which the Holy Ghost touched 
the soul. The touch of God is life-giving, respon- 
siveness to that touch is the token of restored spiritual 
animation. But ever, that which alone has j)ower, 
which overawes, penetrates, and subdues, is a sense 
of God, his reality, his nearness, his almighty in- 
fluences. In all the primitive forms of religion, as 
well as in the last and best, it was the Spirit of God 
alone that acted with illuminating and holy power on 
the world. These primitive forms of religion were 
not forms merely ; a Spirit was in them, a Divine 
Spirit, the Very Divine Spirit; and that is ever 
Mighty, and holy, and luminous, and loving, and 
Pitying, and Patient. 

It has become the mode in these days, within the 
sphere of classical literature, and in religious writing 
not of the kind reputed most safe, to exalt the idea 



SPIRIT IN" NATURE. 321 

of Spirit, even of the Divdne Spirit. An echo of 
the mighty voice of Scripture has gone out into the 
world ; but it is an echo, and has too oft^n all the 
distance and the vagueness of borrowed and reflected 
sound. Mystically and dreamily they talk of the 
great Spirit of Nature, of a Divine Spirit in every- 
thing. There is a sense in which it is true, a grand 
and holy truth. There is verily a Spirit in every 
thing, because there is a God everywhere, a God 
acting, influencing, speaking, revealing himself and 
bringing himself into contact with his rational and 
responsible oflfspring. Everything has an inner 
meaning, a voice — would we but listen to it — a voice 
which might come even to the heart. The mountain 
and the plain, the desert and the verdant field, the 
sea in its calm and in its fury, the river, the living 
spring, the humble flower, the moon in her queenly 
majesty, the sky bespangled with its countless dia- 
monds, — are more than they merely seem. There 
is a Spirit in them, because there is a God. The 
open eye, the susceptible soul, takes in their meaning. 
Man meets in them his ^Nlaker, — Di\Tiie Power, 
Beauty, Serenity, Majesty, Purity, Goodness, and 
Love ! He is calmed by the Divine Presence, over- 
awed, solemnised, even instructed and sanctified. 
But all this, it cannot be concealed, is yet vague, 



822 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

uncertain, evanescent. Only in the light of the in- 
spired Yolnme, does it become a clear, fixed, intel- 
ligible, and interpretable reality. There has been, 
from the beginning, a constant agency of the Spirit 
of God, through various media, on the understanding, 
heart, and conscience, of men. This has been Power, 
the only effective moral power, the secret source of 
all the good that has ever been accomplished, of all 
the successful resistance which has ever been offered 
to moral evil, and of all the triumphs which have 
ever been won in the great conflict. 

Moral Death has been overcome only by contact 
with Life, the Highest Life. The Infinite himself 
has come near, has descended on the world, as 
a moving, illuminating, sanctifying, quickening in- 
fluence. The difference between Christianity and 
all the economies that preceded it lies in this, that 
the points of contact between Death and Life have 
been multiplied; that new fountains have been 
opened, whence the influences that gladden and heal 
may gush forth ; and that new channels have been 
constructed, through which these influences may flow 
out to the world. 

Ever before, the world was unripe for a higher 
manifestation of The Divine. The time had not 
arrived. Many introductory and preparatory me- 



4 



^^ TIMES OF THE SPIRIT." 823 

thods were indispensable. An adequate suscepti- 
bilitj must first be created, a deep and irrepressible 
sense of need must be awakened. Tlien shall the 
Creator come down to man, as he had never before 
done. Then shall the Power of the Holy Ghost, in 
all its resistless energy of Life, descend. At this 
new era, none of the spiritual influences which in 
succession had before acted on the world were lost ; 
on the contrary, they were accumulated and concen- 
trated, but an addition of inconceivable amount was 
made to their number and their force. With inimi- 
table beauty and strength of language, the unfolding 
of Christianity is described as a plenteous outpouring 
of the Holy Ghost ; and these last times are honoured 
as '' The times of the Spirit," because Divine Influ- 
ence then descended in so many ways and in such 
vast amount, as had never before been known. The 
world, at many points at once, and with an awful 
vividness of impression, felt the touch of The Al- 
mighty, and it started, responsive to that touch. 
Each of the separate parts of that complex instru- 
mentality which Christianity unfolds was a new and 
mighty medium, whereby The Living One would 
approach man and act divinely on his nature. The 
Licarnation, the Cross, the Moral Loveliness of 
Christ, and The Living Truth which he uttered, 



824 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

were not only each a reality in itself, but ttey were, 
eacli, the voice, the envelopment, the medium, the 
chosen instrument of a Mighty Spirit ; the illuminat- 
ing, sanctifying, quickening Spirit, the very Spirit 
of God. In each of these, and yet more in all of 
them together, the Holy Ghost descended and di- 
rectly appealed to men. Power was in them, De- 
monstration of The Spirit, not to be gainsaid. They 
brought near the sense of The Divine, and left the 
conviction that God was in them and was by them, 
moving and acting on men. 

Thus it has been for nearly two thousand years ; 
the Holy One, through this mysterious and compli- 
cated instrumentality, striving with the world, pour- 
ing down the light of truth and the force of love, 
commanding all the appliances of infinite wisdom, 
infinite patience and infinite power, and ceaselessly 
distributing, combi^^ing, and modifying moral influ- 
ences of all kinds, in order that at length man might 
be won back to his Creator, to duty, to reason, to 
life. 

The actual effect is, on many sides, embarrassing 
and inexplicable. The world is not Christian, and 
it reveals to us a marvellous exhibition of the Divine 
longsuffering in contrast with the impatience and 
rashness of men. In their puny labours, men fret 



UNIONS AND STUDIES OF ETEKNITY 337 

source of noble friendsliips. Human nature, revealed 
in men, gathered out of all nations, and ages, and 
states of society, men who have passed through all 
kinds of discipline, and reached all kinds of perfec- 
tion, shall offer a field vast enough for eternity. 
Angehc and human beings shall present wondrous 
forms of mental and moral excellence, ravishing 
spiritual beauties, attractive and endearing virtues, 
priceless worth ! 

And this sacred fellowship shall for ever be the 
scene of mutual and mighty spiritual influence. The 
elder sons of creation must have much to impart to 
the younger, and even the younger, out of their 
limited earthly experience, shall be able to interest, 
perhaps also to instruct, the elder ; each in his degree 
may be at once a receiver and an imparter of truth 
and of holy impulse. It would degrade the Eternal 
Future to conceive of it as mere enjoyment, of how- 
ever exalted a kind. There shall be occasion and 
scope for the highest occupation of all the benevolent 
affections. 

At the same time, and quite in harmony with this 
fact, self-development must be regarded as the end 
and aim of created moral being ; and with this, 
while it bears first on the individual, the common 
elevation and progress of the whole are identified. 
15 



338 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

Mind is essentially active, and the Future is dis- 
tinctively the world of mind. The Christian doc- 
trine of a resurrection pointedly excludes the attribute 
of animal life from the material part of the human 
being in another state. Animal life quenched in the 
grave is never more to be rekindled. The only life 
above shall for ever be mental life. And, until the 
resurrection, the Unseen is literally and altogether a 
world of minds. 

Perhaps this conclusion, to a certain class of as- 
sociations and to certain modes of thinking, may be 
scarcely welcome. A world only of mind suggests the 
idea of perfect quietude, a state of motionlessness, 
unproductiveness, coldness, and silence. It is diffi- 
cult for us to conceive of activity, except in connec- 
tion with agitation and noise and outward product. 
There must be something for the hands, for the voice, 
for the physical energies, something to be done, to be 
produced, something that the eye can see, a palpable, 
outward reality. But we forget that the very highest 
form of activity is pure mental activity ; or, rather, that 
there is no activity, nothing that deserves the name, 
except of mind : all else is only semblance, shadow, 
form, type ; the substance and reality are in mind. 
Thinking is working ; the most energetic, productive, 
vital thing in the universe is thought ; at the basis of 



INTERMINABLE PROGRESS. 339 

every product, plan, work, is thought : the cause 
of all action, of all motion, is thought ; and when we 
say that the Future is the world of mind, that is, of 
thought, we do in the same breath convey that it is 
activity in its highest possible form. 

The illimitable range of truth, above all, of spi- 
ritual truth, shall lie spread out for investigation 
before intelligent Beings. This shall constitute the 
Study of Eternity, the grandest, noblest consecration 
of the most exalted Created Powers. And in this, 
there is not only an object to occupy and to draw forth 
the energy of the spiritual nature, but also a medium 
of the most extended spiritual development. Amidst 
the studies and the activities of Eternity, each spirit 
shall work out its own sublime destiny, develope its 
unknown capabilities and resources, reveal ever-new 
intellectual and moral beauties, evolve ever-new 
mysteries and new glories ; and thus invest the region 
in which these come forth with new grandeur and 
new sanctifying power, to delight the eye of God 
himself, and to exalt his creatures' conceptions of 
his inexhaustible opulence and of the hidden .wealth 
of the workmanship of his hands. 

Immensity, the dwelling-place of minds, must be 
a profound and vast silence — silence never to be 
disturbed ; but the symbol of an underlying energy, 



34:0 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

individual and social, wMcli shall know no inter- 
mission, but shall become ever more intense and 
more resistless with the revolutions of eternity. 
The most overwhelming, although the simplest idea, 
which we are able to form of Power, is in con- 
nection with Silent Life, the Life of the Infinite 
Being. Before all worlds, in his own Eternity, 
God was Life! A Living Mind! Thought, Affec- 
tion, Conscience, Will ! no more ! The Infinite 
Mental and Moral Life ! 

For us it is hardly possible to conceive of mere 
life as a blessing— at least an exalted blessing. It 
is so associated in our minds with its accidents, with 
the objects of sense by which it is surrounded, with 
occupations and interests out of itself, with external 
sources and materials of enjoyment, that, if these 
be taken away, what remains seems to us scarcely 
worth possessing But Life itself — silent life, mental, 
moral life, away from all its accidents — simple exis- 
tence to a rational and moral being is a Blessed, a 
Glorious, and a Mighty thing. 

Life — Mighty, Energetic, Silent Being — is 
the Destiny of the Created Moral Universe; yet 
not absolutely dissociated from all that may be 
called accidental or adventitious. In the case of 
one order of intelligent beings, redeemed human 



PERFECTION, BLESSEDNESS. 341 

minds, this is emphatically true. Their life, in 
its very source and cause, shall supply accidents, 
hardly less precious than the substance itself, with 
which they are associated. Theirs is Life pointing 
back to a death — the death of the Incarnate One. 
The Incarnation and the Cross do all but make up 
part of their moral being, so deeply are they con- 
nected with their moral history. Theirs is Life 
begotten of Love, Incarnate, Eedeeming, Crucified 
Love. It is Life given back from an awful per- 
dition. It is the life of minds re-united to God, 
after a dark apostacy. It is life restored to the 
Parent Life, as it ought never to have been separated. 
Away from all its specialities, and in common with 
that of Angelic natures, and with the Entire Being 
of the created Moral Universe, it is Life from God, 
in God, as the stream contains the waters of the foun- 
tain — '^ We are made partakers of a Divine Nature." 
It is Life in its highest, purest, noblest sense, realising 
the very conception of it in the mind of God. It is 
life in all the opulence, freshness, and glory of the 
original Divine Idea — Eternal Life. ^^ This is Life 
Eternal, that they might know thee, the only true 
God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." 
Living is knowing — getting to know the highest, 
grandest truths, which yet we never can perfectly 



342 THE MYSTERY, ETC. 

know. The kingdom of truth is illimitable, and 
He who reigns in it is ^^ The Incomprehensible," 
not only unknown, but unknowable. To the cen- 
tral effulgence of Grod we can never come, only 
to the edge of the shadow cast by the Infinite we 
shall reach ; but that is the very place of adoration. 
Now and again, as we prostrate ourselves there, a 
gleam shall dart through the darkness and tell us that 
there is a Sun, but also that it is never to be looked 
upon face to face. Distant, straggling hints of the 
Grreat Truth, unutterably precious, we shall be able 
to collect ; but there shall be a Eeality beyond. Ab- 
solutely InjBnite, which must for ever be far more 
unknown than known. The hints we gain shall point 
to that Infinite Eeality, and belong to it. We shall 
treasure them, and continue to adore and wait. 
Another and another feeble but precious ray shall 
fall on us and encourage us to watch still for the 
Sun. Life in the immortal world shall be no other 
than this, to rise higher and higher towards that 
height which we can never climb, because it is 
Infinite, leaving below us as we ascend a depth 
which there is no line to fathom, while around us 
stretches an expanse measureless as Eternity. Yet 
is it no doubtful striving, to which the Future in- 
vites, which it promises; but, on the contrary. 



% 



^^LIFE ETERNAL." 343 

an interminable series of crowding and brightening 
successes. Every step shall be a true advance, 
every effort a triumph. Overawed, but not dis- 
heartened by the conviction that '^The Infinite," 
whether as Truth or as Being, is never to be known, 
we shall be enraptured by the deep assurance that 
''The Knowable" of God, Eternity shall not ex- 
haust. Ever brighter, ever grander, ever more 
ravishing, more strengthening, and more sanctifying 
shall be our conceptions of spiritual truth and of 
" Him who is past finding out I" 

Note. — ^While these sheets were passing through the press, 
the Bihliotheca Sacra, for last January, was shown to me by a 
friend. Amongst others, there is in it an article on Sin, contain- 
ing a review of a recent work by Dr. Squiers; of America. That 
work it is my misfortune never to have seen. But it delights 
me to learn from the review, that in one point — the mpreventa- 
bility of Sin — Dr. Squiers maintains the view which is put forth 
in this volume. 

THE END. 



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